Multiple projects on frailty, including measurement, pathophysiology and intervention
Project 1: Frailty in Severe Mental Illness
Field: Geriatrics
Location: Centre for Health Services Research
Type of student:
- Higher Degree Research only i.e. PhD or MPhil (intercalated MD-PhD & MD-MPhil)
- Honours students
- 4 Unit Masters of Public Health (MPH) Student
Type of work:
Literature review
Secondary data analysis
Brief synopsis:
The proposed research activity will focus on frailty in adults with chronic mental health disorders. Serious mental illness affects around 5% of the adult population. It is associated with multiple medical comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome, as well as with poorer functional status, weak muscle strength, and premature mortality. In older people, this constellation of poor health and increased risk of adverse outcomes can be quantified by measuring frailty status. The identification of frailty is important as frail patients can benefit from targeted interventions such as multi-disciplinary rehabilitation and holistic management by a geriatrician. To date, frailty has not been systematically studied in patients with serious mental illness.
This PhD will include a secondary analysis of a dataset of patients with mental health disorders. The student will derive a frailty index for each patient and explore the relationships between frailty status and chronological age, mortality and measures of illness severity. In patients who present longitudinally, s/he will also evaluate how clinical interventions (such as ECT or medication changes) influence frailty trajectories. This program of work will create new knowledge, generating high impact publications. More importantly, a better understanding of frailty in this vulnerable population will provide a foundation for intervention studies.
Contact person : Professor Ruth Hubbard
Project 2: Life Expectancy in Relation to the Accumulation of Deficits
Field: Geriatrics
Location: Centre for Health Services Research
Type of student:
- Higher Degree Research only i.e. PhD or MPhil (intercalated MD-PhD & MD-MPhil)
- 4 Unit Masters of Public Health (MPH) Student
Type of work:
- Secondary data analysis
- Statistical analysis
Brief synopsis:
The reliability theory conceptualizes ageing as the progressive accumulation of random damage to a complex system composed of redundant parts. As defects accumulate, an organism loses its redundancy until eventually it becomes comparable to a system with elements connected in series. Accordingly, mortality kinetics of the longest-lived individuals should become exponential, resembling the law of radioactive decay.
Methods
In this program of work, open-access datasets will be interrogated. These include the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N ≈ 9000) and the UK Biobank data (N ≈ 500,000). Frailty index (FI) scores will be created for each participant and the behaviour of the FI will be analysed to provide new insights into maximum life expectancy.
Prerequisite skills: Statistical experience would be an advantage
Contact person : Professor Ruth Hubbard
Project 3: Multiple projects on frailty, including measurement, pathophysiology and intervention
Fields:
- Biostatistics
- Data analytics
- Epidemiology
- Geriatrics
- Genomics
- Health services
- Medical education
- Public health
- Surgery and subspecialties
Location: Princess Alexandra Hospital
Type of student:
- Both HDR and Extra-curricular
- Honours students
- 4 Unit Masters of Public Health (MPH) Student
- PGY1: Post-graduate year 1
- PGY2: Post-graduate year 2
Type of work:
- Clinical work
- Literature review
- Qualitative methods
- Secondary data analysis
- Statistical analysis
- Systematic review
Brief synopsis:
These projects are situated in the Centre for Health Services Research at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
We have a range of topics available, including but not limited to:
- Understanding sex differences in cognitive impairment and dementia to design targeted interventions
- Understanding the pathophysiology of frailty in various transplant candidates and patients
- Interventions to improve quality of life and goal attainment in frail patients
- Various research questions utilising large, longitudinal datasets
- Others, please enquire.
We invite you to work with an experienced team of researchers on aspects of research development, management or analysis that you are interested in, and may be able to find a unique topic for your interests.
Prerequisite skills: Research methods, statistical analysis
Contact person: Natasha Reid: n.reid@uq.edu.au
