Research grant

The 2021 ISPO Australia Research Grant is now open. Information on how to apply is here https://www.ispo.org.au/2021-anms-ispo-research-grant/

The ISPO Australia Research Grant is aimed at improving quality of life of individuals with neuromuscular or musculoskeletal pathologies who might benefit from prostheses or orthoses. Applications in 2021 should be aimed at contributing new evidence of the benefits of provision of prostheses and orthoses to individuals with neuromuscular or musculoskeletal pathologies treated in Australia.

2019

ISPO Australia’s Science and Research Committee is pleased to announce that the 2019 ANMS-ISPO Research Grant has been awarded to Dr Emily Ridgewell AOPA Research Officer, supported by Leigh Clarke AOPA CEO, Dr Sarah Anderson and Prof Michael Dillon from La Trobe University.

This grant will support stage two of the AOPA Consumer Experience Project – a new national approach to consumer experience benchmarking in orthotic/prosthetic service provision.

2017

The 2017 ANMS-ISPO Research Grant has been awarded to Mark Taylor, Rami Al-Dirini, Saulo Martelli, John Nisyrios and Sally Cavenett from Flinders University of South Australia. This team has received $20,000 for a year to work of a project about closing the loop for the next-generation of prosthetic socket design using biomechanical computational models.

2017 encouragement award

The 2017 ANMS-ISPO Encouragement Award provided the second best ranked application presented by Lauren Kark, Ginu Rajan, Lucy Armitage and Gangadhara Prusty from the University of the New South Wales. This team has received $10,000 for a year to work of a project about clinical utility of a novel residuum-socket interface sensor for normal and shear stress measurement.

2015

Mr. Mohammad Mosayed Ullah and Mr. S. M. Abul Bashar were joint recipients of the 2015 Research Grant for their project exploring the environmental and psychosocial factors that are important to enable the work participation of people with spinal cord injury and lower limb amputation in Bangladesh. Read about their research here.

2013

Ms. Heather Batten (Princess Alexander Hospital and University of Queensland) was awarded the 2013 Research Grant. Her research is exploring walking speed as an indicator of prosthetic walking potential following lower limb amputation. Heather’s work was presented at the World Congress of Physical Therapy in Singapore in May 2015 and the World ISPO Congress in Lyon in June 2015. The abstracts of these presentations are published as follows:

2011

Mr. Ben Patritti was the recipient of the 2011 ISPO Research Grant and his work explores the training effect of functional electrical stimulation on locomotor function and motor fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis. The work has been published in December 2015 in the journal of Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology.

  • Barr CJ, Patritti BL, Bowes R, Crotty M, McLoughlin JV. (2016) Orthotic and therapeutic effect of functional electrical stimulation on fatigue induced gait patterns in people with multiple sclerosis, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, DOI: 10.3109/17483107.2015.1136702

2009

Ms. Caroline Roffman (Physiotherapist, Amputee Rehabilitation Service, Royal Perth Hospital, Shenton Park) was awarded the 2009 ISPO Australia Research Grant. Caroline’s work aims to develop and validate a tool to predict functional outcomes for persons with lower limb amputation. This work resulted in the following publications:

  • Roffman CE, Buchanan J, Allison GT. “Predictors of non-use of prostheses by people with lower limb amputation after discharge from rehabilitation: development and validation of clinical prediction rules” published in the Journal of Physiotherapy 2014 Oct 23;60(4):224-231.
  • Roffman CE, Buchanan J, Allison GT. Locomotor performance during rehabilitation of people with lower limb amputation and prosthetic nonuse 12 months after discharge. Physical Therapy (available online December 4, 2015) DOI: 10.2522/ptj.20140164 

2007

Ms. Priya Davis was the recipient of the inaugural ISPO Australia Research Grant in 2007. The grant allowed Priya and her colleagues to pursue an investigation looking at the effect of gait and energy expenditure in persons using stance­ control knee­ ankle­ foot orthoses (KAFO). This work was published in ISPO’s international peer­ reviewed journal Prosthetics and Orthotics International and showed that while the stance­ control orthoses improved walking velocity compared to a KAFO with locked knee, no significant differences in energy expenditure were observed between the two conditions.