Potential Studies

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Study focus

We are looking for people living with neurological conditions to contribute to an ongoing study. This involves collecting data about your physical status, lifestyle, and biological characteristics. We will use this data to identify and develop new tools to improve the quality of life.

Who can participate?

• Between 18 and 85 years of age

• Able to follow written and verbal instructions

• No recent changes to prescribed medication (if applicable)

What is involved?

Participants will undergo annual assessments. These include memory and thinking measures as well as physical functioning. Participants will also be asked to provide a blood sample and undertake a body composition scan.

Normally, testing days would require you to attend Joondalup campus. However, there is a remote delivery version available if that is more convenient. During certain times, such as when there are high numbers of COVID-19 cases in the community, we may run remote delivered assessments only.

ABI : Recover

Researchers from the University of Western Australia (UWA), working with Fiona Stanley Hospital, are studying the relationship between thinking skills (like memory) and recovery of daily functioning (like paying your bills on time) following a brain injury. We want to find out what types of thinking skills are most important for people recovering from a brain injury. 

What is the benefit of this?

• We hope this study will one day improve brain injury rehabilitation by offering strategies to help people with these thinking problems. 

• If you wish, we can write a brief neuropsychological report regarding your thinking skills for your doctor (your doctor or clinician at FSH, or your GP, or both if you prefer) after you have completed a baseline and 3-month follow-up assessment.

• If you are having any problems with thinking skills or other problems common after a brain injury (for example fatigue), we will send you and your doctor some tips and recommendations that may help.

• We reimburse some of the expenses of coming to UWA to participate in the study.  Specifically, we offer $35 for costs associated with participating (e.g., petrol, lunch) when we see you for the testing at the Robin Winkler Clinic at UWA.

What are we asking you to do?

• If you agree to participate, we schedule an appointment with you at the Robin Winkler Clinic at UWA for the study and provide you with a map of where we are. This assessment includes tasks such as remembering a list of words or copying a shape and takes about 4 hours.  Depending on how you find the assessment (if it makes you tired), it can also be completed over two separate days. 

• If you decide to participate in this study, we will then also ask to review your hospital discharge/treatment summary (this is a summary written by your treatment providers at Fiona Stanley Hospital) so that we can know more about your brain injury, your social and work background, and any treatment you have received for your brain injury. 

• This study also looks at how your thinking skills affect your recovery in the future, so we would invite you to come back to the Robin Winkler Clinic after 3 months, 1 year, and 2 years to give the tests again and see how you are going. If you like, we write an update letter for your doctor on how you are going compared to the last time we saw you.

• If you decide not to continue with the study, you can withdraw at any time without any negative consequences for your treatment at Fiona Stanley Hospital or elsewhere.  

• We also do brief phone or email check in 9 months and 18 months after your first time with us. These are just short questions that you can complete over the phone, on the internet, or we can mail them to you and they take about 15 minutes to complete. 

• If you would like to hear more about the study, please sign up on the next page

We really appreciate your help and please do not hesitate to contact Danielle Fynn on 6488 2644 or ABIRECOVERRESEARCH@GMAIL.COM if you have any queries.