The Research Power Hour:

Professor Sallie Lamb

When: Thursday 17th December 2020
Time: 0800 – 0900 AEDT
Where: Zoom webinar

To register your attendance please click here.

The webinar link will be emailed to registered attendees on Monday 14th December 2020. Please note that you can register even if unable to attend on the day to receive a link to the recording of the webinar.

The Prevention of Fall Injury Trial was a large (n=9803) UK study that sought to prevent fractures in older adults with falls risk screening and multifactorial and exercise interventions. The study was recently published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

The Institute for Musculoskeletal Health and the ANZ Falls Prevention Society jointly invite you to join trial author Professor Sallie Lamb, and an expert panel to discuss the results and finer details of this impressive trial and take questions from the audience. Our expert panel will include Professor Cathie Sherrington, Professor Vasikaran Naganathan and Professor Stephen Lord.

Professor Lamb is the Mireille Gillings Professor for Health Innovation at the University of Exeter. She is also an Honorary Departmental Professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. She has a background as a physiotherapist.

A link to the study abstract is provided here.

Webinar – Pain, Balance and Falls In Older Adults

Presented by the ANZFPS Education Sub-Committee

Our presenters have provided some responses for questions that they were unable to be answered during our Q&A Session – you can view them here: Pain Webinar – Additional Q&A responses

Program: 

Pain as a risk factor for falls – An overview of the literature 

Dr Daina Sturnieks, Neuroscience Research Australia

Community-dwelling older adults with pain are more likely to have fallen in the past 12 months and to fall again in the future. A brief overview of the literature will be provided.

Gait, balance and pain in knee osteoarthritis and its impacts on falls

Professor Pazit Levinger, National Ageing Research Institute

People with knee osteoarthritis often report pain, difficulty performing activities of daily living and present with a range of physical impairments including joint stiffness, muscle weakness, altered proprioception, reduced balance and gait abnormalities. This presentation will overview the common gait and balance impairments seen in people with lower limb osteoarthritis and how they may relate to increase falls risk.

Foot pain, balance and falls in older people

Professor Hylton Menz, La Trobe University

Foot pain affects 1 in 4 people over the age of 65 years and is associated with decreased ability to undertake activities of daily living, problems with balance and gait, and an increased risk of falls. This presentation will provide an overview of (i) the epidemiology of foot pain in older people, (ii) the mechanisms by which foot pain increases the risk of falls, and (iii) interventions targeting foot pain that may reduce the risk of falling.

Interventions to reduce chronic pain—focus on older people

Mr Rodrigo Rizzo, Neuroscience Research Australia

Chronic pain is one of the most common conditions encountered by healthcare professionals among older people. The management of chronic pain in older people must take into account the multiple comorbidities that this population may have (eg. disorders of gait and balance). The risk of falls must be considered for both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions in older patients with chronic pain.

Presenters

 Dr Daina Sturnieks

Dr Sturnieks has a PhD in human biomechanics (UWA). She is Laboratory Manager for the Falls, Balance and Injury Research Centre at NeuRA. Her research focuses on understanding biomechanical, sensorimotor and neurocognitive contributions to balance and falls in older people and clinical groups, and randomised controlled trials of novel interventions to prevent falls involving balance, stepping and cognitive training. Dr Sturnieks is active in translating research findings into community, aged care and hospital settings and is Executive Board Member of the Australian and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society.

Professor Pazit Levinger

Professor Levinger is a Senior Researcher (Accredited Exercise Physiologist) at the National Ageing Research Institute. She also holds Honorary positions at the Rehabilitation, Ageing and Independent Living (RAIL) Research Centre, Monash University and the Institute for Health and Sport (IHES), Victoria University. She has over 15 years experience, skills and expertise in active ageing, physical activity and falls prevention, quantitative gait analysis and clinical biomechanics with the focus on people with osteoarthritis.

Professor Hylton B Menz

Professor Hylton Menz is a podiatrist who graduated with first class Honours and the University Medal from La Trobe University in 1993, and completed his PhD focusing on gait patterns, balance and falls at the University of NSW in 2002. He is currently a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Senior Research Fellow. Professor Menz’s broad research disciplines are human movement, rehabilitation and rheumatology, with a particular focus on musculoskeletal foot problems in older people. His research extends from laboratory-based biomechanical studies through to analysis of epidemiological datasets and the conduct of clinical trials.

Mr Rodrigo Rizzo

Rodrigo Rizzo is a Doctoral Candidate at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and University of New South Wales (UNSW). He is a physiotherapist who has worked in the management of chronic pain for over 15 years.

Introduction to Health Economics for Fall Prevention Researchers

Presented by the ANZFPS Early Career Researcher Sub-Committee

Presenters: Dr Alison Pearce & Daniel Treacy

Dr Pearce introduces how Health Economists think, and why that might be interesting and/or useful to fall prevention researchers. Alison gives practical guidance for how to find and work with a Health Economist. Daniel discusses the practical application of health economics using an example from hospital rehabilitation.

 To watch the webinar recorded on Thursday 26th of March 2020 click here.

After watching the webinar, please complete our evaluation survey by clicking here.

Dr Pearce has generously made her slides available. If you use or adapt the information contained, please acknowledge Dr Pearce and the event.

Dr Alison Pearce is a health economist interested in the various costs of cancer, and how people make choices about their health and healthcare. Alison’s research aims to use health services research and health economics to improve cancer care by providing relevant, reliable information for decision making. Currently based at the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Alison teaches introductory health economics and conducts research in the areas of oncology patient preferences and productivity loss. Alison’s research extends the work previously completed at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at UTS, and as a postdoc at the National Cancer Registry in Ireland. Alison’s PhD investigated the costs of chemotherapy side effects at CHERE in 2013, after working in cancer clinical trials and health services research.

Alison’s original training was in occupational therapy, and she remains interested in rehabilitation research. Alison also has keen interests in early career researcher development, communicating research to the public, and the use of social media in academia. When not being an academic Alison enjoys putting economic theories into practice in her small business – Bean Bar You.

Daniel Treacy is the Physiotherapy Advisor for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District and a PhD student through the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Sydney. Daniel has previously worked as a rehabilitation Physiotherapist and has a strong interest in improving the function of elderly people both within the hospital and community setting. Daniel’s PhD topic is “Increasing and measuring physical rehabilitation”