July 6, 2021
Department of Physical Therapy summer research highlights
By Brad Willis Pediatric Physical Therapy — Featured Article The Department of Physical Therapy congratulates Jamie Hall, PT, DPT, PhD, PCS, assistant teaching professor and assistant director of the Mizzou Motion Analysis Center, Morgan Woods, PT, DPT ’21, and Jessica Luechtefeld, PT, DPT ’18, PCS, on their recent publication, “Pediatric Physical Therapy Telehealth and COVID-19: Factors, Facilitators, and Barriers Influencing Effectiveness — a Survey Study” in Pediatric Physical Therapy. This article was named the featured publication for the July 2021 issue of Pediatric Physical Therapy. Watch an interview with Dr. Hall discussing study highlights and implications. Morgan Woods…
June 30, 2021
NextGen offers new possibilities for MU researchers addressing health disparities
June 29, 2021 Contact: Kenny Gerling, gerlingk@missouri.edu Loren Bauerband, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions, uses large data sets gathered from many sources — often called big data — to research health disparities facing transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Their work is complicated by the limitations of available data, which is often incomplete or not representative of the population. “We know that transgender individuals experience a lot of barriers to health care and access in general,” Bauerband said. “What I do is extend data about those topics to…
June 17, 2021
Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences professor receives U.S. patent
June 17, 2021 By Kelsey Pritchett The Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences is excited to share that Mili Kuruvilla-Dugdale, assistant professor of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, was part of a team of inventors who recently received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office. The team consisted of two speech-language pathologists, Kuruvilla-Dugdale and Teresa Lever of the School of Medicine, and two engineers, Filiz Bunyak and Yunxin Zhao of the College of Engineering. The speech-language pathologists identified the health care need and business potential; the engineers developed the software system. “Clinician-scientist collaborations are critical to developing feasible solutions…
June 16, 2021
Family support key to overcoming barriers to HIV treatment in Africa
June 16, 2021 Story contact: Brian Consiglio, 573-882-9144, consigliob@missouri.edu Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that physical mobility, transportation and financial issues pose the biggest barriers to accessing HIV treatment for older adults in South Africa, where 20 to 30 percent of people over age 50 are infected with the virus. However, MU researchers also found that family support proved to be the strongest facilitator in overcoming these challenges thanks to changing attitudes in Africa about HIV/AIDS. “What we found was older adults with HIV often have younger family members who have been raised in a society of…
April 27, 2021
Lack of educational opportunities influence drug use for rural youth
April 27, 2021 Having grown up poor in a rural village in Zimbabwe, Wilson Majee saw firsthand as a child the lack of educational opportunities that were easily accessible and how that impacted the youth in his village. Now an associate professor of Health Sciences and Public Health in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions, Majee researches the challenges facing disadvantaged, rural youth. He found in a recent study that young people who are disengaged from their communities are much more likely to participate in risky behaviors such as substance abuse, particularly in rural areas that lack educational…
April 8, 2021
MU study finds racial inequality within heart transplant process
April 8, 2021 A new study from the University of Missouri found that Black patients with advanced heart failure were more likely to receive a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, later in their disease progression compared to white patients, ultimately resulting in worse health outcomes. Adrianne Frech, an associate professor in the MU School of Health Professions, is a medical sociologist interested in addressing inequalities within the health care system. She was curious if race affected a patient’s ability to access newer versions of LVADs, which are implanted into the chest of a patient with advanced heart failure to…
March 24, 2021
Audio-enhanced storybooks can improve vocabulary of at-risk preschoolers
March 24, 2021 A new study by the University of Missouri has found that using interactive, pre-recorded storybooks can improve the vocabulary of at-risk preschoolers – good news for getting a vulnerable population of children ready for school. “While we are working with children who are only 4 or 5 years old, we teach them the vocabulary words they will need to know when they eventually enter elementary or middle school,” said Elizabeth Kelley, an assistant professor in the MU School of Health Professions, who collaborated with Howard Goldstein at the University of South Florida, on the project. “If we can teach…
March 22, 2021
Crisis Intervention Training reduces stigma of mental illness in prisons
March 22, 2021 Before joining the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri, Professor Kelli E. Canada worked as a community clinical social worker in Chicago. There, many of her clients struggled with mental illness and were dealing with long stints in the prison system. What she discovered was corrections officers play an important role in prisoners’ lives, but often don’t understand how to deal with behaviors associated with mental illness. With that in mind, Canada partnered with the Missouri Department of Corrections (MODOC) to study how adjusting de-escalation techniques could improve corrections officers’ interactions with inmates with mental…
March 17, 2021
Physical Therapy represents at 2021 APTA Combined Sections Meeting
March 17, 2021 The Department of Physical Therapy is proud to highlight the scholarly activity of Mizzou DPT faculty, clinical partners, and students at the 2021 Combined Section Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). Impressively, the department had over a dozen presentations, offered virtually, at the profession’s largest annual event. Presentations focused on sub-specialty topic areas including pediatrics, neurology, chronic pain, and educational research. While live presentations were offered throughout February, recorded and on-demand content available will be available until the end of March 2021. We hope you join us by visiting the 2021 Combined Sections Meeting…
March 12, 2021
Michelle Teti receives Fulbright Scholar Award
Dr. Teti will travel to South Africa to collaborate with University of Western Cape researchers March 12, 2021 The University of Missouri School of Health Professions is pleased to announce that Michelle Teti, associate department chair and associate professor of Public Health, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award in public health for the 2020–21 academic year from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Dr. Teti, who is also affiliated with the MU Black Studies department, is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will conduct research and/or teach abroad for the 2020–21…