Students

Ettie Ben-Shabat

PhD Candidate, School of Occupational Therapy, and School of Psychological Sciences at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey, Associate Professor Tom Matyas, Dr Amy Brodtmann

Project: A brain activation study of limb position sense in stroke affected individuals - with and without sensory training, and in healthy aged.

Background: Position sense is decreased in about 40% of stroke sufferers. Such sensory loss detrimentally affects functional outcomes even when the motor capacity is intact. Understanding of central mechanisms (brain activation) of position sense is currently limited.

Aim: To better understand how position sense is processed in healthy brains, how stroke affects patterns of brain activation associated with position sense, and how these patterns recover following treatment.

Methods: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) will be used to study areas of brain activation. During scans subjects will perform wrist position tasks with varying degrees of attention. Healthy subjects will undergo one scan while stroke subjects will be scanned three times (scans will be timed four weeks apart). Between the second and third scans stroke subjects will be randomly allocated to receive either sensory training (treatment condition) or a sensory exposure (control condition).

Benefits: Knowledge gained will provide the scientific rationale for sensory training and the background for developing new treatment techniques.

Email: ebshabat@ nsri.org.au

Jannette Blennerhassett

PhD Candidate, Occupational Therapy at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey, Associate Professor Tom Matyas

Project: Pinch grip force control in stoke

Investigation of the relationship between sensory and motor impairment upon altered pinch grip after stroke

Email: Jannette.Blennerhassett@ austin.org.au

Dominique A Cadilhac

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Dr Helen M Dewey, Professor Robert C Carter, Dr Amanda D Thrift

Project: The efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of blood pressure lowering interventions in stroke.

I am undertaking a systematic approach to the assessment of a range blood pressure lowering interventions to reduce the burden of stroke and better inform resource allocation decisions for public health policy decision-making. This assessment uses explicit ‘priority setting’ methods, which take into consideration the cost-effectiveness of interventions (and the use of a stroke specific economic model) and broader issues related to their appropriateness for Australia, in a transparent and tractable way.

Email: dcadilhac@ nsri.org.au

Gillian Emond

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea and Dr Bev Phillips

Project: Postural control mechanisms during self generated perturbation in standing

I am investigating the muscle onset timings (both latency and order of onset) of 12 postural muscles in normal older people and comparing this with timings taken from a group of high functional level stroke subjects. I am also using force plate data to link in the ground reaction force information to this picture as well as using 2D video analysis to investigate quality of movement during several different balance tasks.

Email: gemond@ unimelb.edu.au

Helena Frawley

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Dr Bev Phillips, Professor Kari Bo.

Project: The effect of a physiotherapy treatment program on pelvic function following gynaecological surgery

Email: h.frawley@ pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Kunshan Goh

Honours Student, Occupational Therapy at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey

Project: Discriminative Validity of the new Multijoint Test of Limb Position Sense for use with Stroke Clients

This project aims to assess the ability of the new Multi-joint Position Sense test to accurately measure stroke patients' upper limb position sense in clinical settings. Results will be compared with established data of age matched healthy controls.

Brian Hoare

PhD Candidate at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey

Project: Botox and constraint therapy in upper limb in Cerebral Palsy

Email: Brian.Hoare@ southernhealth.org.au

Clarissa Martin

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Dr Bev Phillips

Project: A longitudinal study of gait and balance parameters in people recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Email: cmartin@ unimelb.edu.au

Mary Mastos

Master of Occupational Therapy Student at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey, Ellie Fossey

Project: An occupation based approach to sensory retraining post stroke.

My study aims to investigate the client centred occupational outcomes related to the current sensory retraining program, demonstrated to have strong theoretical foundations, as compared with a goal directed occupation based approach incorporating generalized discrimination principles stemming from motor learning and perceptual learning literature.

Email: mmastos@ nsri.org.au

Kimberly Miller

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Professor Tony Goodwin

Project: Investigation of the efficacy of early intensive task-specific training of the upper limb following stroke.

Email: k.miller@ unimelb.edu.au

Ian Mosley

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Dr Helen Dewey, Professor Geoff Donnan, Dr Marcus Nicol

Project: Emergency recognition and management of acute stroke

Involves investigating the emergency recognition and management of acute stroke in both the pre-hospital and emergency department settings.

Email: imosley@ nsri.org.au

Melinda Randall

PhD Candidate, Occupational Therapy at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey

Project: Further development of 'The Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function' (the Melbourne Assessment).

The Melbourne Assessment was developed in the 1990's to measure quality of upper limb movement in children aged 5 to 15 years with cerebral palsy. This project addresses the further development of this tool in the following two ways.

1. Development and validation of an adapted form of the assessment for use with children aged 2 to 4 years. This study involves reviewing and modifying the assessment, then trialing the modified version with 60 children aged 2 to 4 years. Two samples of children will be trialed, (i) 30 who have no known neurological impairment and (ii) 30 who have a congenital or acquired neurological impairment.
2. Further investigation of the construct validity of the tool by (i) analysing sub-items to confirm and/or refine items for inclusion in the assessment and refine scaling units utilised and (ii) establishing empirical evidence for the dimensionality of the assessment items.

Email: m.randall@ latrobe.edu.au

Jill Rodda

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Professor Mary Galea, Professor Kerr Graham, Dr Richard Baker

Project: Severe crouch gait in spastic diplegia: the impact of single event multilevel surgery

This thesis presents an analysis of the outcome of single event multilevel surgery at one and five years for children with spastic diplegia walking in severe crouch gait. A pre-cursor of this analysis is a rigorous definition of “crouch gait” which is absent from the literature. A significant component of this thesis is therefore the proposal of a systematic classification of sagittal gait patterns in spastic diplegia including a specific definition of the term “crouch gait”.

Email: jill.rodda@ rch.org.au

Tara Sharpley

Master of Science Student

Supervised by: Dr Julie Bernhardt, Professor Geoffrey Donnan

Project: Determining Differences in Stroke Unit Care: Melbourne Versus Trondheim

This project aims to examine in what way processes of care differ between stroke units Austin Health and St Olav's Hospital Trondheim, Norway (Gold standard care). Using a mixed method approach, we will obtain both qualitative and process of care information from large samples of patients in both countries and determine how stroke care delivery differs between sites. We aim to identify factors that might be associated with excellent stroke outcome, particularly with relation to early rehabilitation practices, that may be used to help improve care in existing stroke units or inform the development on new stroke units.

Email: Tara.Sharpley@ austin.org.au

Jill Stow

PhD Candidate, School of Nursing at University of Melbourne

Supervised by: Professor Trisha Dunning, Dr Anne McIntosh, Dr Peter Hudson

Project: The Development of Knowledge and Self-Management Practices in People with a New Diagnosis of Epilepsy

Email: jstow@ unimelb.edu.au

Megan Turville

Honours Student, Occupational Therapy at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey

Project: Progression through sensory retraining: To what extent do individual differences in progress predict formal outcomes?

Johanne Walker

Master of Occupational Therapy Student at La Trobe University

Supervised by: Professor Leeanne Carey

Project: Individual patient characteristics that predict favourable outcomes following a generalised somatosensory discrimination training program in the hand after stroke

The study will investigate the known characteristics of individuals that may predict success, following sensory discrimination training in the hand after stroke.  It is being conducted as part of a randomised controlled trial testing the effectiveness of sensory training. This study will provide evidence for the selection of stroke patients likely to benefit from sensory training.

Email: johannew@ barwonhealth.org.au

Sarah Velissaris ( nee Willetts )

PhD Candidate

Supervised by: Dr Sarah Wilson, Associate Professor Michael Saling

Project: Characterising the psychosocial impact of first seizures in adulthood

Email: s.velissaris@ pgrad.unimelb.edu.au