Arthritis, Muscles, Bones and Joint Health
People depend on our muscles, bones and joints to be able to walk and run, work and play, do our shopping and hug our families. This research group looks at recovery from injury or living with chronic conditions. We aim to assist people to maximising their functional and participation in life. We use a collaborative Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health (NMAHPS) approach. We look for practical and person-centred solutions to problems faced by people with musculoskeletal injuries or conditions. Collaborating consumers and consumer groups, we seek priorities for research and for approaches to research that will best serve the needs of our community.
Our research looks at three levels of innovation in practice. First, unravelling why and how we experience injury, pain or arthritis. Second, how we can live our best lives while managing our physical issues, and third, preventing these physical issues in the first place.
Projects
| Name | Contact | Description |
|---|---|---|
| PICKLeS (Knee osteoarthritis) | Prof Jennie Scarvell | This project compares people awaiting a knee replacement with age, gender and BMI matched people with healthy knees, and people of all ages with healthy knees, to ask the questions: how do healthy knees move, and how does this change with osteoarthritis and ageing? We also follow people for two years to look at outcomes from knee replacement. |
| Tendinopathy | Somatosensory in tendinopathy. This series of studies looks at the role of somatosensory changes in the development and rehabilitation of people with tendinopathy. | |
| Tendinopathy | Asst Prof Angie Fearon | Who responds to treatment? A study examining the clinical measures of those who respond to treatment. (Gluteal tendinopathy) |
| Tendinopathy | Asst Prof Angie Fearon | The role of the blood supply in tendons is controversial. We are examining this for gluteal tendons |
| Tendinopathy | Asst Prof Angie Fearon | The development of a core set of outcomes scores for tendinopathy. |
| Tendinopathy | Asst Prof Jaquelin Bousie | Stretchier muscles: Can they reduce a pain in the hip? Investigating, via elastography, whether stretching can reduce stiffness in hip muscles. |
| Hip pain | Asst Prof Angie Fearon | Differentiating hip tendon from hip OA. This series of studies examines the relationship between gluteal tendinopathy and the development of hip osteoarthritis. |
| Major trauma Recovery | Asst Prof Rebekah Ogilvie | The project will identify the most important factors that determine whether adults recover completely or not following major traumatic injury. This includes identifying a suite of patient and injury features that can assist clinicians to better understand the unmet needs of patients in the acute clinical care setting, and to track their responsiveness to recovery care. |
Staff
| Name | Discipline | Research interests |
|---|---|---|
| UC Clinical School | Robotics in Stroke rehabilitation, physical activity for people with mental health problems. Musculoskeletal overload data analysis. | |
| Asst Prof Jaquelin Bousie | Physiotherapy | Foot and lower limb injuries, biomechanics, tendinopathy, physiotherapy interventions |
| Asst Prof Angie Fearon |
Physiotherapy, Exercise medicine, Biomechanics | Optimising function, biomechanics and clinical outcome measures, rehabilitation, exercise therapy |
| Asst Prof Rebekah Ogilvie | Nursing | Trauma recovery |
| Prof Diana Perriman (adjunct) | Physiotherapy | Physiotherapy interventions, Orthopaedic surgery outcomes |
| Prof Jennie Scarvell |
Faculty of Health, Physiotherapy, Biomechanics | Clinical outcomes, joint replacement, managing better without knee replacement, physiotherapy interventions for arthritis |
| Prof Paul Smith (adjunct) | Orthopaedic Surgeon | Orthopaedic surgery techniques and outcomes |
HDR students
| Name | Project description |
|---|---|
| Corinne Bridge |
Does spinal fusion for scoliosis improve quality of life and clinical outcomes for children with cerebral palsy? Prof Doc Nurse Practitioner |
| Joe Lynch | Impact of three designs of total knee replacement on knee motion – RCT. ANU PhD |
| Denika Silva |
Knee osteoarthritis interventions that matter to people. Can we change the way people move with knee osteoarthritis and how does this change progression of the disease? PhD |
| Roopika Sodhi | A randomised clinical trial for Pilates to improve patient outcomes for chronic low back pain. Master Physiotherapy Research. |
Recent graduates
| Name | Project description |
|---|---|
| Luke Bickett |
Are People with Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome at Greater Risk of Hip Osteoarthritis or Osteoporosis? An 11-Year Prospective Cohort Study (Hons) |
| Alice Churchill |
Weighing in: Does size matter in knee kinematics? B Physiotherapy (Hons) |
| Catherine Galvin |
Healthy and Osteoarthritic Knee Kinematics. A 3D/2D Image-Registration Study of Kneeling. A Rigid Body, Dynamic Kinematic Analysis of the Human Knee Joint. PhD. |
| Nicola Hribar |
Knee poetry: older males and females have different kinematics during deep kneeling using single-plane fluoroscopy and computed tomography. B Physiotherapy (Hons) |
| Jayden Hunter | Do foot-orthoses alter hip biomechanics during gait in women with greater trochanteric pain syndrome? |
| Nicola Robinson | Does Dynamic Tape change the walking biomechanics of women with greater trochanteric pain syndrome? A blinded randomised controlled crossover trial. (Hons) |
| Pouya Saaedian |
Is post-operative knee kinematics dependent on the pre-operative knee kinematics? A study of deep-flexion before and after Total Knee Arthroplasty B Physiotherapy (Hons) |
| Yi-Ying Zeng |
Tailoring manual therapy for stiff knees with 4-Dimensional motion analysis. A pilot randomised clinical trial. B Physiotherapy (Hons) |