The Best of RAT, CATCH and TaCT, 2016

The University of Sheffield Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Group (RAT), Telehealth and Care Technologies (TaCT) Theme and the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) have had a busy 2016...


January

CLAHRC Director from Sheffield Invited to NIHR Parliamentary Open Day: Professor Sue Mawson was invited to represent all of the CLAHRCs in England to celebrate the NIHR's 10th Anniversary

Building on Palliative Care Services: The EnComPaSS project (Enhanced Community Palliative Care Support Services) has 

developed a short video (see below) to explain in what way the project 
aims to help build on current services to enable staff resources to be 
used more effectively and more efficiently so that patients can die at 
home, rather than hospital, if they wish.

February
In conversation with Sheffield MP Paul Blomfield: 

The University of Sheffield welcomed Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield on a visit to meet with leading health service researchers.

Strong CATCH / RAT / CLARHC representation at the Yorkshire and Humner Allied Health Professional Conference, 2016

Innovative Canadian palliative care approach implemented by U.K.-based hospice: EnComPaSS (Enhanced Community Palliative Support Services), which is led by Deborah Fitzsimmons from Western’s Faculty of Health Sciences, provides effective and cost efficient care for UK patients and their families in their own homes.

March

EnComPaSSing the Palliative Care Congress in Glasgow: The EnComPaSS palliative care project went live at St Luke’s Hospice, Sheffield on January 18^th. Within the first month, 120 patients received 152 technology-enabled palliative care visits from Hospice community nurses. This achievement was celebrated at the 11^th Palliative Care Congress at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow.

April

University of Sheffield to host prestigious European conference on Assistive Technology in 2017

AcTo Dementia website launches: the primary focus is to recommend Accessible Touchscreen apps for people living with dementia.

May

Newborn screening – BMJ award finalists: A prevention category featured in this years BMJ awards and the CLAHRC supported Newborn Screening was short-listed.

June

Pioneering technology designed to help transform independence will be showcased in Sheffield later this year at the UK's leading assistive technology conference: The Technology for Independence (T4I) Conference will be hosted by the University of Sheffield to showcase Assistive Technology (AT) related research and service innovation across health, education, employment and daily living.

Patient and public involvement event for stroke survivors and their carers: the Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare (CATCH) held a patient and public involvement in research event for stroke survivors and their carers in the newly opened Diamond Building at the University of Sheffield.

CATCH researchers take part in the UKspeech conference in Sheffield: 140 speech technology researchers took part in the 5th national UK speech conference on 20-21^st June 2016. This year, the conference was organised by the Speech and Hearing Group, Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield.

July

Mario Muñoz Organero - my time in CATCH: For the last year here in CATCH we have been highly fortunate to be joined by visiting Professor Mario Muñoz Organero from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain where he is an Associate Professor in Telematics Engineering.

Professor Mark Hawley, Director of CATCH features in the current edition of the University of Sheffield’s Discover magazine: Speaking to the publication, Professor Hawley shared the centre’s aims: “Our goal is to help older people, people with disabilities and people with long-term health conditions to help themselves through the use of carefully designed and relevant technology,”

August

Consent Support Tool published!: We have published the Consent Support Tool, a practical resource designed to help health researchers seek informed consent from people with communication disorders. The tool provides a communication screening test, which researchers can use to identify potential participants’ communication needs.

AcTo Dementia World Tour: Researcher Phil Joddrell recently took the AcTo Dementia project on a world tour. Phil attended the 15th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP) in July to present work related to the AcTo Dementia project.

September

Dr Peter Cudd celebrates Research Institute Technology and Disability’s 25th anniversary in Germany: The Research Institute Technology and Disability (FTB), one of the founding members of the Association for theAdvancement of Assistive Technology in Europe (AAATE) celebrated its 25^th anniversary in Düsseldorf, Germany.

CATCH Director, Prof. Mark Hawley attends Technology and Healthcare Innovation Symposium in the Netherlands: CATCH Centre Director, Professor Mark Hawley travelled to the Netherlands to join a symposium to mark the career of Professor Luc de Witte who leaves his role as Director for the Centre of Expertise on Innovative Care and Technology (EIZT) this week to take up the role of Chair within CATCH.

October

Professor Luc de Witte joins CATCH with big plans for the future: On Monday 3rd October we were delighted to welcome Professor Luc de Witte to the CATCH team.

CATCH’s Simon Judge awarded Honorary Fellowship in RCSLT annual honours: Simon Judge, Senior Clinical Scientist at Barnsley Hospital and Honorary Research Fellow within CATCH was last night presented with an HonoraryFellowship in the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists’ (RCSLT) annual Honours Ceremony in London.

November

The Urban Slums Project team’s visit to India: As part of our international project “a mobile diagnostic and screening toolkit for urban slums settings”, a workshop was conducted on the 18^th-19^th of October 2016 in Bangalore, India.

December
26th Alzheimer Europe Conference: Becky Field (Researcher, PhD student and Occupational Therapist) attends and gives presentation

University of Sheffield Short Courses Run by the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology group and CATCH

Real-world evaluation course is run for the fifth time on the 2^nd and 3^rd March 2017. The course is focused on evaluation methods designed for complex health and social interventions/programmes.

Experiential Research Approaches (ERA) is a newly developed course. It is run for the first time on the 1^st and 2^nd February 2017. The course is focused on qualitative research with emphasis on context-dependent and values-based methods. 

Click here or here to find out more.

One of the biggest conferences on Assistive Technology is coming to Sheffield!

A five day congress otherwise known as the AAATE will be coming to Sheffield in September 2017. The congress will be hosted by the University of Sheffield. The call for papers is now open and submissions can be made from 14th December 2016 with a deadline of January 2017.

For more details please visit the AAATE website: http://www.aaate2017.eu

My research attachment at ScHARR

Pim Taleongpong

Pim is a second year medical student who worked with Miss Lauren Powell to produce a review about the use of apps with children and young people with ADHD. This is how she found her experience:

I was placed within the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) for six weeks and worked on a project titled “Children and young people with ADHD – is there an app for that?”. During this time, I performed a scoping review to find out if there is evidence to suggest that apps can be beneficial in the management of paediatric ADHD. We have found that there are many apps for children and young people with ADHD most of which serve as a tool to help children with self-monitoring, time management, task scheduling and cognitive training. There are also apps that are designed for clinicians to help with decision making and treatment planning for patients with ADHD. These apps have great potential to improve ADHD management in children and young people

As a medical student, this was both an educational and eye opening experience for me as I began with very little knowledge about scoping reviews and also ADHD. Over the past six weeks I have had the chance to develop my critical appraisal skills and learnt new techniques to perform enhanced literature searches. It has been amazing to see how rapidly technology is changing medicine in the 21^st century, this has reinforced to me how important it is to be aware of new and unconventional treatments. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at ScHARR and believe that the skills that I have learnt will positively impact on my future practice.

Written by Pim Taleongpong

Reflections of Research

Meet Frankie, she is a second year medical student at the university of Sheffield and has spent the past 6 weeks working with researcher Miss Lauren Powell in a research setting for the first time. This is what she has to say about her experience...

I have spent the last 6 weeks on a research attachment in the School of Health and related Research (ScHARR) writing a scoping review on whether apps can be useful for children and young people with ADHD. I found the task a little daunting at first as I haven’t done much academic writing before and a scoping review was a whole new type of paper to me.

As I gained a deeper understanding through carrying out more research, I found this project really engaging. It has been interesting to expand my knowledge on ADHD and to find out about new apps that can be useful. I particularly liked the apps that used technology such as eye-tracking and the indirect apps that could be used by teachers, parents and doctors surrounding the child’s life. I am excited to find out about new research as it is conducted.

I have developed many skills during this project including; learning how to carry out database searches and screen hundreds of papers, improving my excel skills, learning how to make a consort diagram and improving my referencing. This is also the first paper that I have written with a literature review and I enjoyed how each part would flow into the next: What ADHD is. How it affects the child’s life. Why it needs to be managed. How technology is engaging. That apps are an accessible form of technology. Everything made sense!

I would like to thank our supervisor for doing a great job, tracking our progress each week and making sure that we’d made sufficient progress. As a novice in the academic writing world, I feel like this project has helped me to develop all of the skills required with academic writing and has given me more confidence that I can bring to future projects.

Written by Frankie Dimambro-Denson

6 weeks in research- My experience

Izzy Faulkner

Izzy is a second year medial student who attended a 6-week placement with Miss Lauren Powell. It was her first experience of working independently within a research setting...

Having never properly experienced research before, I was apprehensive about starting my research attachment. The world of research seemed a scary place to just a second-year student, having come to University straight from sixth form. My school was a relatively small school with small class sizes and plenty of guidance, so 6 weeks of independent learning was a new concept to me.

The main thing that my time in research has taught me is that time management is key, this is the part I struggled the most with, as the majority of my past learning experiences (school and lectures) were fairly structured. I think that my time management skills improved as the 6 weeks progressed and I hope that the experience has made me a more independent learner and made me less reliant on structured timetables.

The 6-week placement has also made me appreciate the importance of research to the practice of medicine. Having researched the use of apps for ADHD for my placement, I now (think) I understand how much technology can impact on your practice as a doctor. This will hopefully mean that I can use the research skills that I have gained in the future to keep up-to-date with the latest research, in order to be the best doctor I can possibly be. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have a brief encounter of the research world and hope that it has made me a better doctor-to-be.

Written by Izzy Faulkner