Grant: Embedded Clinician Researcher Salary Award - Western Canada

Each year, more than 10,000 Canadian children will suffer post-concussion syndrome, which includes long term problems with thinking, headaches, sleep disturbances, depression, social withdrawal, poor quality of life, and lost time at school. When children experience post-concussion, then there is increasing demand on families, schools, and health care organizations. Unfortunately, we understand very little about the causes of post-concussion syndrome and even less about what we can do to treat it. My mission is to enhance children's functioning, outcome, and quality of life following concussion (or mild traumatic brain injury). The focus of this embedded clinician research program over the next four years is on the children who have post-concussion syndrome; about 10-15% of those who get a concussion. My goals are to: (1) improve our ability to diagnose concussion in youth and determine who will have poor outcome; (2) better understand post-concussion syndrome from biological, psychological, and social viewpoints; (3) determine whether there are long-term effects for youth who sustain concussions; and (4) study new treatment interventions that can reduce symptoms, speed up recovery, or even prevent the post-concussion syndrome. As a clinician within Alberta Health Services and practicing at Alberta Children's Hospital, I am fully embedded with a province-wide health system and am in a unique position to have my clinical research improve quality of care. I am the director of neuropsychology services for this hospital, I meet with hospital management about policy, care, and innovation on a regular basis to dictate strategies for psychology, I am a co-investigator with several members who sit on a provincially based concussion clinical pathways task force, and I have also established several local, national, and international collaborations. Through these avenues I will implement new clinical care pathways and change how care is provide to youth every year.