Commissioned by the Swiss Federation of Manual Medicine and under the
patronage of FIMM (International Federation of Manual Medicine) we
conducted an international seminar during the week following the 7th
Inter- national Congress of FIMM (Zuerich/Switzerland - September 1983).
Thirty Manual Medicine experts had come together in the education center
of the Cloister Fischingen secluded in the eastern part of Switzerland
and away from any city life, to discuss in a week long seminar the
status of Man- ual Medicine. Working together in the form of several
groups, the following points were emphasized: - terminology - diagnostic
criteria (are Manual Medicine findings reproducible?) - therapeutic
interventions (degree of congruity of treatment plans) The participants
demonstrated great enthusiasm and commitment, and so it was possible to
have the content of the individual group's discussion com- municated to
and presented for further scrutiny to all participants during the
seminar week. As members of the organizing committee and as the editors
of this publica- tion, we hope to help establish a more standardized
international terminolo- gy concerning the field of Manual Medicine. As
this clinical trial (investigating the diagnostic reliability and the
therapeu- tic efficiency of MM) shows, factors such as terminology,
diagnostic criteria and therapeutic plans are a prerequisite for
multi-center studies.