Category: Winter 2016 Newsletter
ENACT in the Community: The BOOST Exercise Program
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ENACT fellow Aileen Ledingham assists with one of the BOOST exercises
Dr. Kristin Baker, PhD, PI of ENACT’s BOOST study, and doctoral fellow Aileen Ledingham, PT, MS, recently spent time exercising with members of The Historic Peoples Baptist Church of Boston. The congregation at Peoples Baptist Church has achieved great success with its Health Ministry since it began several years ago. After starting a walking group with the support of ENACT and the New England Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation in 2010, the group has continued to ‘walk’ in strides! While the program has had excellent sustainability, the Boston winters always sidetrack the activity of the group. Those snow drifts can be pesky for people with arthritis!
To address this challenge, Dr. Baker extended our community programming initiatives by bringing the evidence-based BOOST exercise program to the members of the church to help them acquire a self-sustaining option to stay active during bad weather. Dr. Baker led one session per week for 4 weeks and then used some mHealth technology to support the interim sessions to encourage participants to develop confidence in both doing and leading the exercises. The group continues to use their BOOST training along with regular walking activity and anticipates that it will take them through the winter!
Peoples Baptist Church was recently a featured “FitChurch” in a Boston Black Ministerial Alliance video, where their accomplishments were touted as a model for other churches, with a goal of being replicated nationally in the religious community. Congratulations to Peoples on this well-earned recognition!
ENACT’s Doctoral Fellows – Where Are They Now?
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Drs. AlHeresh (left) and Vaughan after Boston University's graduation ceremony
Part of the mission of ENACT’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center grant is to contribute to the future of rheumatological research by supporting doctoral students to obtain advanced degrees in rehabilitation science. In addition to tuition support, ENACT doctoral fellows assist in ongoing ENACT research and receive rigorous, interdisciplinary mentoring. Two ENACT doctoral fellows have completed their training and are now working in the field.
Rawan AlHeresh, PhD, OT, completed the doctoral program in July 2015 and was accepted as an Advanced Rehabilitation Research and Training postdoctoral fellow at Boston University’s Health and Disability Research Institute, where she pursued her interest in outcome measurement. This postdoctoral fellowship program is supported by the National Institute for Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). During her fellowship, Dr. AlHeresh worked with Elizabeth Marfeo, PhD, MPH, OTR/L, an Assistant Professor within the Tufts University Occupational Therapy Department and forged connections with researchers there. She will be joining Mass General Hospital's Institute of Health Professions in the Department of Occupational Therapy in January.
Molly Vaughan, PhD, DPT, completed the doctoral program in April 2016 and began working as a Research Associate on ENACT’s Walkability Study, a collaboration with the University of North Carolina’s Thurston Arthritis Center funded jointly by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Arthritis Foundation. Molly recently accepted a position with RTI International as a Research Public Health Analyst where she will be working on post-acute care setting outcome measure development and standardization as part of the Impact Act of 2010.
We look forward to the contributions of these scholars over the coming years! See more of our fellows’ work in the newsletter publications summary.
Work It Study and BOOST Clinical Trial Results: Two Webinars Planned for 2017
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Keep a look out for upcoming webinars where we’ll disseminate findings from our 2-year randomized controlled trials: 1) Efficacy of a Modified Vocational Rehabilitation Intervention for Work Disability (the “Work it Study”), and 2) Can computer-based telephone counseling improve long-term adherence to strength training in elders with knee OA? (the BOOST study).
In the Work It Study, we evaluated whether a job barrier identification and solution generation process delivered by trained occupational and physical therapists minimized work disability among people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal conditions who were at risk of work loss over the upcoming few years. This study addresses an extremely important outcome for people with chronic rheumatological and musculoskeletal conditions, with estimates showing approximately 33% of people with these conditions are unemployed within 10 years of diagnosis.
The BOOST study investigated if a remote interactive technology intervention could improve adherence to a strength training program over 2 years in people with knee OA more than an automated message to encourage adherence. The efficacy of strength training to impact pain and function for people with knee OA is well-established, but less than 15% of individuals over age 65 report doing any strength training and poor long-term adherence has been observed in other trials. An effective approach to encourage adherence to strength training activity could be helpful for this population.
Once the manuscripts are accepted and in press, we will host webinars to share our results. Stay tuned! We think we have important findings for the field and welcome discussion with our colleagues.
Clinical Trial Results the Focus of ENACT Presentations at ACR/ARHP & APTA-CSM Annual Meetings
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If you’ll be in San Antonio in February for APTA-CSM, Julie Keysor, PhD, PT, will be there presenting results from the “Work It Study” trial. Physical therapists delivered a novel intervention addressing work-related barriers and solutions among adults with chronic rheumatological and musculoskeletal conditions who were at risk of work loss due to their health. This study could lead the way for therapists to intervene to prevent work disability for a population that is at high risk of work loss.
ENACT pre-doctoral fellow Aileen Ledingham, PT, MS will also be presenting her poster “Adults with Knee Osteoarthritis: Perspectives on Telephone Technology to Support Adherence to Exercise”, an ancillary qualitative study to ENACT’s BOOST trial. With her study, Ms. Ledingham explores the BOOST participant’s thoughts and perspectives on the technology used in the BOOST adherence study. Ms. Ledingham’s work may lead to novel ways to promote adherence to physical therapy programs.
ENACT investigators also brought the results of both randomized controlled trials to the arthritis research community at the November 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
Dr. Keysor presented the main results from the “Work-it” employment outcomes study during a joint ACR/ARHP on November 15th and Kristin Baker, PhD, presented results from the “BOOST” trial on November 16th.
In addition, recent ENACT graduate Molly Vaughan, PhD, DPT, presented her dissertation research to the ACR/ARHP audience. Her work, which analyzed data from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST) to examine, looked at the relationship between positive/negative affect and participation restriction among persons with knee osteoarthritis.
Did you miss these presentations? You can still find abstracts for all three talks here
