Scholarship Opens Research Doors In Us

摘要

In 2008 I Was Awarded a Fulbright Professional Scholarship, which gave me an opportunity to take leave of absence from my employer and conduct a research and study project in the United States for 15 weeks. The aim of my project was to investigate the use of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) as an effective intervention for children with cerebral palsy (CP) to improve movement and functioning. FES is a way of producing muscular contractions in the body by means of electrical stimulation. It is used in situations where an individual cannot voluntarily coordinate their muscle movement due to an incident, such as a stroke or spinal cord injury. Some researchers around the world were reporting intriguing results when it came to using FES on people with CP, particularly permanent effects induced by the stimulation - a condition known as "carry over" (when the effect of the stimulation continues after the electrodes are removed). The scholarship gave me the opportunity to spend time in the US with FES experts. Such experts simply don't exist in Australia because FES is not widely used here, particularly in the area that I was investigating. I studied at the Cleveland FES Center (an international centre of excellence for FES) and Shriners Hospitals for Children Philadelphia, which is one of only a few research hospitals that conduct paediatric FES research and clinical trial work.