Page 43 - OPTA Access Spring 2020

The Research Committee has made great strides forward in the second half of 2019 and the start of the new year . The committee has worked with three strategic goals:
1) promoting research activities,
2) acknowledging and rewarding individuals being involved in research, and
3) facilitating research activities and communicating about research results and/or research processes .
Following is the list of what we have accomplished or currently in process:
Conference Call Meetings . We have had three conference call meetings thus far (June, August and October) with participants in the range of 7-12 people in each meeting, discussing the matters related to research . Additionally, two workgroup meetings were held to discuss the grant review process to streamline the process and improve transparency with the selection process .
Newsletter Publication . We had begun publishing the newsletter in 2018 to share what is going
on among OPTA members in terms of research activities, update in the area of physical therapy practices, and to facilitate collaborations among the members of OPTA . In 2019, we published the newsletter of the Research Committee in January, May, and November. The final newsletter of 2019 had two contributors, Damian Keter, PT, DPT, OCS and Cody J. Mansfield, PT, DPT, AT, whose writing highlighted some of the great research being conducted and utilized in Ohio . We appreciate contributions by Andrew Raschke and Greg Kline who have been instrumental to the publications . They either reached out to potential writers and communicated with them or organized submitted articles and sought feedbacks on a draft of the newsletter until being completed .
Research Committee Report Andrew Raschke, PT, DPT, OCS – Co-Chair
Grant Review/Research Process Training . One of principal objectives of the Research Committee is to promote research activities by supporting investigators with research funding . This activity requires the committee members to evaluate research proposals with research-trained eyes . Improving the quality and consistency of the grant review process has been major goal of the committee . To reach this goal the committee is developing educational material for reviewers; this effort has been led by Abraham Lee . The committee has also met to discus the process of grant review in an effort to improve continuity and year-to-year consistency in the reviewing process and how grants are awarded .
Grant Applications, Evaluation and Awards . During the second half of 2019 the research committee received five grant application for the 2019 OPTA research grant. The review of these grants was led by Dawn Westfall, who assisted with allocating applications to reviewers and consolidating reviewers’ findings. This year the Research Committee selected three projects to fund: 1) Cody Mansfield, PT, DPT, OCS, AT, FAAOMPT, “The Effects of Bilateral Knee Pain & Dry Needling on Laterality Recognition, Movement & Function ($835.00),” 2) Sarah M . Swab, PT, DPT, “An Investigation of Child-Caregiver Interactions in the Motor Behavior of Children with Cerebral Palsy ($400.00),” and 3) David Sherman, PT, DPT, ATC, “Influence of Sensory System Constraints on Brain Activity During Postural Control Task Performance ($1658.00).” These awardees were recognized at OPTA 2019 OPTimize . Dawn and all those who evaluated grant applications are greatly appreciated . We are also thankful to Cathy Bieber Parrott who prepared award certificates for the awardees.
For more information, contact
or Andrew at andrew.raschke@icloud.com
Sports SIG Report Jeff Swiers, PT, DPT, OCS, C-OMPT - Chair
Happy New Year from the OPTA Sports SIG! As a group, we have continued to grow, and we currently have 180+ members following us on our Facebook page . If you haven’t followed and are interested in Sports and Orthopedic Physical Therapy – please check out our link at: Ohio Physical Therapy Association: Sports SIG and click (like) to follow . We post information from various areas including the American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM), British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), Strength and Conditioning Research (S&CR), Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT), Sports Health, and the International Journal
of Sports Physical Therapy (IJSPT) .
In 2020 we hope to continue to expand the Sports SIG and look forward to making this a more interactive group within the Ohio Chapter .
For more information, contact Jeff at: jswiers11@gmail.com
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