November 2009

Lady recieving award jpeg

Churchill Fellowship recipient Associate Professor Anne Holland receives her award from Victoria’s Governor David de Kretser.

Fellowship allows study of remote rehabilitation

The Alfred Hospital and La Trobe University’s Associate Professor of Physiotherapy Anne Holland has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship to expand her work in tele-medicine.

The award will enable Ms Holland to investigate new ways to deliver pulmonary rehabilitation to patients with chronic lung disease using broadband technology.

She will use her fellowship to travel to Norway, Spain, Scotland, Canada and the USA to visit world leaders in remote rehabilitation via the internet.

The insights will help Ms Holland create a world-first tele-rehabilitation prototype, a project that she is currently leading in collaboration with researchers from the University of NSW and Austin Health.

‘The prototype will offer an eight-week rehabilitation program with a physiotherapy consultant for regional patients, delivered via video-cam in either their homes or their local health care centres.

‘The patients will use a device which can measure heart-rate and oxygen levels while exercising on a stationary bike.

‘The data will then be relayed in real time back to the clinician for on the spot analysis,’ Ms Holland said.