Centre for Clinical Research Excellence in Clinical Gait Analysis and Gait Rehabilitation
A collaboration between:
     |
Director's Report
Richard Baker PhD CEng, CSci, Director, Gait CCRE
The Centre for Clinical Research Excellence in Clinical Gait Analysis and Gait Rehabilitation (Gait CCRE) is now 18 months old. It gives me great pleasure to provide this report and reflect on what we have done well and what we plan to do better.
The ability to walk is fundamental to a person's quality of life yet a substantial portion of Australia's population has difficulty walking. This includes children with cerebral palsy, people injured playing sport or older people with Parkinson disease, osteoarthritis or suffering the effects of stroke.
The process of helping people improve their walking ability crosses many medical areas. Doctors, physiotherapists, prosthetists, orthotists and podiatrists all work together.
In the clinical gait analysis laboratory, video cameras, force plates, muscle activity sensors and computers are used to record how people walk. The information can either be used to support clinical decision making or for research to evaluate the effectiveness of gait rehabilitation. The Gait CCRE aims both to improve the techniques used to make measurements and to apply these techniques to understand better our patient's problems and methods we have to help them.
Our primary funding is a $2 million, five-year grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council. We are now almost a third of the way through this funding programme.
The early months of the Gait CCRE focussed on establishing our operational structure and recruiting post-doctoral research fellows and doctoral students. The completion of this phase was symbolised by our formal launch in July 2005. It was a great honour to have the Federal Treasurer, the Hon. Peter Costello MP, and the Patron of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC DBE, both present. Television and newspaper coverage of the event was excellent.
Assembling the team
Twelve months on from that launch the real work of conducting research, training researchers and ensuring that results are translated into clinical practice is well underway.
A strong team of researchers has now been assembled, either directly funded from the CCRE grant or from other funds that the Chief Investigators have won. We now have a team of nine post-doctoral research fellows and 14 doctoral students. This collaborative working relationship gives us the critical mass to do some really significant research. The quality of that research can be judged by the fact that we have had 59 papers published in peer reviewed journals and another 21 submitted and awaiting publication.
Our winning record
We also have an excellent record in attracting grant funding. Significant grants include a Michael J Fox Foundation Clinical Discovery Grant (more than $800,000), a project grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council ($335,000), and others from the US National Parkinson Disease Association (more than $100,000) and the Hugh Williamson Foundation ($300,000). We have also negotiated research contracts with international companies Vicon ($200,000) and Allergan ($400,000).
Spreading the word
The work of the CCRE has also been presented at conferences and other scientific meetings around the globe. Chief Investigators have given keynote addresses at conferences in Piza (Italy), Salford (UK), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Kyoto (Japan), Utah and Washington DC (USA), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Warsaw (Poland). Many other papers have been presented at a variety of other conferences.
The Gait CCRE will also be a key player at one of the biggest gait analysis meetings ever staged - the Joint Meeting of the European Society for Movement Analysis in Adults and Children (ESMAC) and the (North American) Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society (GCMAS) in Amsterdam in September 2006. Our team will be represented by one keynote presentation, five podium presentations and six poster presentations.
Our activities have also attracted local and national press, along with stories on television, radio and internet news services. The biggest flurry of publicity was the Gait CCRE launch in July 2005 by Federal Treasurer Peter Costello and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute patron Dame Elisabeth Murdoch AC DBE. There was also widespread publicity in July 2006 when the US-based Michael J. Fox Foundation gave $800,000 for research into Parkinson disease. There were stories in 18 newspapers, with interviews on Channel 9’s Today Show and evening news service. This was even mentioned in the Sunday Age quiz section.
Training for the future
We take our role in education and training of clinical researchers very seriously. All post-doctoral research fellows have access to our mentoring programme. All doctoral students are making considerable progress towards their different research degrees. The monthly Seminar Programme has been a real highlight of the CCRE’s activities with a wide range of stimulating talks. It is estimated that total attendance at the seminars has now exceeded 600.
Translation of research findings into clinical practice is a priority. The Translation Committee has now been established and we thank all those representatives of patient and professional organisations who have freely given of their time to support this. The Clinical Research Training Fellowships have so far given five clinicians the opportunity to be trained in clinical research methodology by undertaking small research projects supervised by the Chief Investigators. This programme is planned to expand significantly over coming years.
All in all the CCRE can be proud of its achievements in its first 18 months. We plan to use this as a platform to move forward. A particular aim over the next twelve months is to develop our wider educational activities with courses planned on Clinical Research Methods in Gait Analysis and Rehabilitation (two days), Three Dimensional Gait Analysis (three days) and Gait Rehabilitation (three days).
Our ability to make so much progress in so short a time is attributable to the support we have had from many people and institutions, many highlighted in this report. The Board of Management has worked constructively and flexibly to support me and to implement our original vision. The Translation Committee has also made a valuable contribution.
My greatest delight however comes from working with the expanding team of researchers, sharing their excitement in learning more about how our patients walk and how we can help them to walk better. It is this that drives our research and it will be this, ultimately, that leads to improvements in the lives of Australians who find walking difficult.
Richard Baker PhD CEng CSci
Director, Gait CCRE