NAU Professor and UA Med Student Team Up for Stroke Research
Ten years ago, the three Arizona state public universities came together to create a groundbreaking new campus called the Phoenix Bioscience Core, where, in a shared space, interprofessional collaboration and academic excellence would meet to educate the next generation of healthcare professionals. The PBC gave the landscape and infrastructure for interdisciplinary, cross-university collaborations like one between NAU Professor of Physical Therapy, Dr. Pamela Bosch, and University of Arizona fourth year medical student, Lizzie Mangone.
For Dr. Bosch and Lizzie, the collaboration came about almost on day one of Lizzie’s med school journey. As a medical student, Lizzie was required to participate in not only the clinical side of learning, but also the scholarly. As a research mentor, Dr. Bosch was looking for someone with experience working with large datasets from public health sources. Lizzie fit the bill.
Together, they analyzed data from inpatient rehabilitation facilities to determine how people fair after having a stroke. On admission to inpatient rehabilitation, a patient’s baseline function is measured with a functional assessment tool specific to that setting that is used across the country. This determines the patient’s baseline function – ability to walk, talk and brush their teeth, for example. Dr. Bosch and Lizzie analyzed the data to determine if the scores on that functional assessment predicted future outcomes, such as being discharged back into the community. They also assessed whether those functional scores were associated with another, well-known stroke severity measure that is mainly used in acute care hospitals immediately after stroke (the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, NIHSS).
Their research determined that a patient’s baseline function score on the assessment was positively correlated to the person’s ability to return to their community (home or home with a health aid). It also showed that some components of this assessment tool could be used as a substitute for the NIHSS as a measure of stroke severity.
“The assessment that rehabilitation centers complete on stroke patients is new, which means this data is new. Our research gives, for the first time, an understanding that if a patient has better mobility and better self-care, there is a correlation with their likelihood of returning home. Returning home has a major impact on a person’s long-term health and functional abilities. This information can help the inpatient rehab healthcare workers focus on the necessary skills to get patients home after a stroke, train their caregivers, and makes everyone involved in that patient’s life more successful and less stressed.”
Lizzie and Dr. Bosch’s research was presented at the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine Conference in 2022 where it was recognized with the Stroke Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group Chair Outstanding Scientific Poster Award. The research will also be submitted for publication in a medical journal.
As NAU celebrates its first ten years at PBC, it is certain that more partnerships, collaborations and opportunities like this one will arise to positively impact the healthcare field statewide.
Learn more about cross university collaboration at nau.edu/pbc