1st Annual Health Science Research Day Held at the Rinker Campus

The
Rinker Health Science Campus
 held its first annual Health Science Research Day on April 7, bringing together graduate student and alumni research from inter-professional programs.

Presented research from
Crean College
of Health and Behavioral Sciences programs included
Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD)
and
Physical Therapy (DPT)
, along with the
School of Pharmacy.
Graduate students and faculty from
Athletic Training
and
Marriage and Family Therapy
programs also participated in the event, creating a collaborative event with five health and behavioral science programs, the first to be held at Chapman.

DPT student research: ‘The Development of Kinematic Methods for TeleRehabilitation.’ Dr. Grant-Beuttler and Dr. McKenize as faculty advisers, in partnership with UCI’s Department of Neurology.

Devin Duval ’16 discusses his presented collaborative research alongside DPT students, which outlined the design to study the effects of manual stretching for stroke patients who suffer from muscle spasticity.

“This inaugural event brings together students and researchers from across the Health Sciences at Chapman University. We are excited about the future possible collaborations and inter-professional research projects that a conference like this can stimulate. Each year we expect this conference to continue to grow and provide an opportunity for future scholarly practitioners to present their research findings.”

Community and family members, along with fellow student and faculty attendees, mingled and made the rounds through the event to hear details of the research collaborations. DPT research presentations ranged from, ‘The effects of circuit-training therapeutic intervention on individuals with chronic stroke (including our Stroke Boot Camp program)’ to ‘Method research design of weight drop perturbation vs. force plate perturbation,’ essentially studying the difference in stress on the body when you challenge a persons’ balance from shifting weight in the hips vs. a force plate moving beneath the participants feet. CSD included several posters that presented collected data from those with traumatic brain injuries and outlined selecting the appropriate speech language and hearing services for particular syndromes. This included, ‘The story: my experiences with traumatic brain injury,’ mentored by
Dr. Mary Kennedy,
who specializes her research in
cognitive rehabilitation for
t
raumatic brain injuries and concussions
.

CSD research: ‘Usher syndrome and the role of the speech language pathologist,’ presented by Alumna Lynn Gallandt, Stephanie Wu, and program Chair, Dr. Judy Montgomery.

DPT research: ‘Method research design of weight drop perturbation vs. Force plate perturbation,’ presented by DPT students Aiko Araki, Kirsten Hertzler, Jennifer Macaulay, Rebekah Rehberger, and DPT faculty, Patricia Brown.