Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 34

FEATURE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Due to uncertainty in the service I was working for at the
time, I decided to jump from the NHS into private practice. Sadly
things did not go to plan and I decided to locum. This gave me
the opportunity to see patients at different stages of their journey
with ABI in different localities across the North West.
Eventually, I was lucky enough to secure a permanent job at
The Walton Centre, in 2013, having locumed there previously;
this is when my journey to research started to take off.
On the Saturday prior to starting my new job, my horse
Shaun decided to ditch me at a cross country fence. Much to
my annoyance, I had fractured my collar bone, which meant that
when I did eventually start my job I was office bound.
I was approached by my seniors and the trauma therapy
co-ordinator about creating a measure for the trauma team to
screen patients for subtle cognitive deficits.
In 2008, the NHS reviewed trauma care pathways across
England following evidence advising the need for more co-
ordinated care (Sleat and Willett 2010). The new pathway placed I applied, was interviewed, and I was offered one of only two
funded places.
I completed my MRes at Edge Hill University, attending
lectures at weekends, and I completed two taught modules in
the first year. Studying made so much more sense as it was
applied to my area of interest and my grades were much better
than my undergraduate days.
The remainder of the course focused on the completion of
a research project requiring full NHS ethical approval. I chose
to carry out a feasibility study exploring the use of the CFPM
in clinical practice and comparing its performance to existing
assessments used by the occupational therapy service.
The outcome of the study was that the CFPM required
development to establish its validity and reliability.
I graduated with a Masters in Clinical and Health Research in
2018.
On a local level, the MRes changed practice; both the
vascular specialist nurses and trauma therapy team now use
strong emphasis on rehabilitation (NAO 2010).
The trauma therapy co-ordinator role was introduced in many
centres and networks, and their role was to screen and co-
ordinate the rehabilitation of patients.
At The Walton Centre this role is held by a physiotherapist,
and although extremely experienced and knowledgeable, a
physiotherapist is not trained in the identification of cognitive
deficits, and this was recognised as a limitation to their clinical
assessment.
Having to remain office based enabled me to spend time
developing the Cognitive Functional Performance Measure
(CFPM).
One afternoon in 2015, my therapy manager asked whether
any staff members would be interested in applying for a part-
time funded MRes. My supervisor immediately put me forward.
My first thought was: ‘I can’t do this; I’m not clever enough’.
However, with lots of encouragement and support from the team the measure to screen patients and to discuss concerns about
cognition with occupational therapy.
It has raised awareness of cognitive problems and the impact
on functional ability across the trust.
All the teams involved in the study fully embraced the
opportunity to take part in a research project and there was no
need to bribe anyone with cake, as I had first feared.
Developing my proposal and writing my thesis introduced the
occupational therapy service to new cognitive assessments and
helped to provide up-to-date research related to our existing
assessments.
I used my new found enthusiasm for research and innovation
to encourage one of my occupational therapy colleagues to co-
author an article for OTnews about the training we delivered with
neuropsychology on managing cognitive problems. This article
was picked up by the OT Show and we were asked to present
our work.
‘‘
Developing my
proposal and writing my
thesis introduced the
occupational therapy service
to new cognitive assessments
and helped to provide up-to-
date research related to our
existing assessments.
34 OTnews November 2019