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Information about a piece of news titled First ever physical therapist in the International Handball Federation Medical Commission

First ever physical therapist in the International Handball Federation Medical Commission

Intoduction

Grethe Myklebust has - as the first physical therapist been elected to the Medical Commission in the International Handball Federation. This makes her the first physical therapist to become a member of an international federation Medical Commission regardless of sport.

Grethe Myklebust is the first ever physical therapist elected to the Medical Commission in the International Handball Federation.

Grethe Myklebust was educated as a physical therapist in Oslo in 1984, and specialised early as a sports physiotherapist. She has since 1988 mostly worked at the Norwegian Institute of Sports Medicine (NIMI).

 

In 2000 she started her PhD-studies at the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center and she defended her dissertation ACL injuries in team handball from injury to prevention in June 2003. Now she works half-time as a post-doctoral fellow at the Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center and half-time with patient treatment at NIMI.

 

Grethe has been the team physical therapist for the female national team handball and soccer teams, but has since 1996 worked with the beach volleyball national teams.

 

In the IHF Medical Commission she will be involved in the supervision of doping controls during all international championships and Olympic games. In addition, a continuous injury survey is conducted during all IHF championships to monitor injury trends.

Her first assignment was with doping control supervision during the female World Championships in Croatia in December 2003. In March she attended the IHF congress in Athens as a preparation before the Olympics in August. One of the issues at the congress will be how team handball can be made a safer sport from a medical point of view, an area where she has extensive research experience.