Lauren Christie wins ECR grant

Lauren Christie had been awarded one of four Stroke Foundation 2021 Early Career Researcher Seed Grants. She has been granted $49,498 to conduct 'Remote Constraint Induced Therapy of the upper Extremity (ReCITE): An implementation study'.

Ms Christie is the Senior Implementation Science Research Fellow – Allied Health, a conjoint role with St Vincent’s Health Network Sydney and the Nursing Research Institute at ACU.

ReCITE will investigate the feasibility and acceptability of delivering constraint induced movement therapy (CIMT) for upper limb recovery via telehealth. CIMT is a strongly recommended intervention for arm recovery in the national clinical guidelines for stroke management, yet remains under utilised in practice, with daily attendance at appointments for a 2-3-week period one of the barriers to stroke survivors accessing this evidence-based intervention. ReCITE aims to address this evidence-practice gap and evaluate whether similar outcomes are achieved when CIMT is delivered using a telehealth model. 

The study will be conducted at three hospital sites in Sydney and will use a suite of clinical resources developed by an international team of occupational therapists and physiotherapists in collaboration with final-year occupational therapy students from ACU in 2020. Ms Christie will be mentored in her role as Chief Investigator on the project by Professor Sandy Middleton, Director of the Nursing Research Institute.