Page 21 - UD Research Magazine Vol5-No1

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Battle-injury related limb amputations suffered by soldiers during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and Operation Enduring Freedom.
— Congressional Research Service
Working in conjunction with the CTDB are the biomechanics, biostatistics and outcomes measurement cores, which further bolster research capabilities at the sites.
Mayo Clinic researcher Kenton Kaufman, who oversees BADER’s scien- tific cores, said the consortium brings together the work being done by the military treatment centers on a larger scale. Although each facility has a method for collecting data, BADER helps pool that data, in part thanks to the CTDB.
“We’re bringing together groups of people that can look at improving the outcomes of people who have had military injuries,” said Kaufman, director of the Biomechanics-Motion Analysis Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic. “One of the strengths of BADER is the infrastructure it has de- veloped. We make it possible to do clinical studies on combat-relevant patients.”
At Naval Medical Center San Diego, BADER has embedded two positions into the core staff, Wyatt said. One is a funding protocol coordinator and another is a limited-term researcher, both of whom are on-site and working on the projects.
“BADER is unique in that its purpose is to support us—to facilitate and help the research,” Wyatt said. “That has been a huge help.”
Boosting a research-intensive culture at military treatment facilities
One of the goals of the BADER Consortium is to develop a research-intensive culture among the participating military treatment facilities.
To that end, BADER—through a $1.2 million award from the UD College of
Health Sciences—is covering the cost of tuition for eight full-time Ph.D. students in the biomechanics and movement science program.
John Collins is the first BADER-supported doctoral student to go through the program. He is on hiatus from the Naval Medical Center San Diego, where he worked in the gait lab with patients who had lost all or part of a limb.
He works in the BADER treadmill lab, collecting data for the lab’s human move- ment database under the direction of BADER director Steven Stanhope. Collins en- joys the opportunity to get data from patients that can be helpful to both clinicians and researchers.
“With prosthetics, there are still a lot of unknowns. A lot of it is based on reitera- tions of old technology. A lot of it is done by feel,” said Collins, who was part of the team that started the first Naval gait lab on the West Coast. “We can provide objective data to the prosthetists, so they know there is a reason that a change should be made, instead of doing it just to do it.”
Marilynn Wyatt, director of the Gait Analysis Laboratory at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, said the expertise Collins is getting while working at BADER will have a positive impact on the services her treatment facility provides to patients.
“It is a super-neat step for his career,” she said. “I’m really proud of him.”
Collins plans to take three semesters of coursework before he returns to San Diego, armed with an idea for his doctoral dissertation project.
“My goal is whatever research I do benefits the hospital,” said Collins, who already has a master’s degree in biomechanics. “I’ve wanted to eventually move into a leader- ship role, and I think a Ph.D. prepares me for that.”
John Collins, from the Naval Medical Center San Diego, is now working on his doctorate in biomechanics and movement science at UD.
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KATHY F. ATKINSON