Karen Davies
Two graduate students in the Department of Occupational Therapy & Occupational Sciences have been awarded support from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Master’s student Karen Davies, is the recipient of the CIHR Masters Award for her project entitled “Long-term follow-up of children with idiopathic toe walking.”
Davies’ project examines the condition where children walk on their toes for several years with no underlying medical reason. In B.C., treatment strategies can be combinations of physiotherapy, the use of casts or braces, injections into the calf muscles, and/or surgery. However many of these treatments can be time consuming, invasive, and costly, and whether they are necessary or successful in the long term is unknown.
The study will follow a group of 133 B.C. children who are diagnosed with mild, moderate, or severe idiopathic toe walking between 1997 and 2005, to see how many continue to walk on their toes. The project will track what treatments they have received to find which were successful, and if other factors prevented families from seeking treatment. Understanding which treatments worked and which did not will inform future treatment schedules and potentially limit unnecessary interventions for children and their families.
Kristine Theurer
Kristine Theurer a PhD candidate in the department has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship through the SSHRC for her project “Please don’t throw balloons at me: An investigation of social citizenship in long-term care homes.”
Theurer’s project examines ways to improve psychosocial quality of life for residents in long-term care facilities, as loneliness and depression are an area of critical concern. Currently, residents in long-term care complain of stale programming, lack of meaning, and a lack of opportunities to actively engage as citizens with a voice in their communities.
In this two-phase qualitative study employing interviews, focus groups and structured observations, social citizenship and related policies from the perspectives of residents and staff will be explored, along with an evaluation of a new social model. Findings have the potential to increase resident engagement in their long-term care communities, and lessen feelings of loneliness and depression.