Research Center Awarded $724,000 for Rehabilitation Research Training Center

The SCI/Outcomes & Assessment Labs were awarded a 5-year NIDRR grant for the Rehabilitation Research Training Center.  Kessler Foundation will collaborate with Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on t

October 9, 2009 - October 8, 2009. Dr. David Tulsky, Dr. Noelle Carlozzi and the SCI/Outcomes team were awarded a 5-year NIDRR grant for the Rehabilitation Research Training Center. Kessler Foundation Research Center will collaborate with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on this important project, which will focus on measuring function in people with traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and stroke. Kessler Foundation will receive $724,000 over the 5-year period.

A summary of the project:

The purpose of this Rehabilitation Research Training Center is to provide national leadership on the critical outcome measurement needs of the rehabilitation sciences and medical rehabilitation communities. This RRTC will focus on persons with traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and stroke because these groups experience complex cognitive, physical, sensory and emotional impairments that limit access to and use of standardized test protocols.

This program will (1) increase the measures of cognitive function for use in rehabilitation settings so that consumers' needs and outcomes are documented; (2) examine the validity of measures of cognitive function for persons with disabilities within major item banks (3) evaluate and refine measures of barriers of community participation enabling better evaluation of the outcomes of rehabilitation services; (4) utilize the large set of data to examine the validity of the cognitive items on the Continuity and Record Evaluation (CARE) Tool, a standardized patient assessment instrument being developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The expected outcomes are measures of cognition and environmental factors that meet the needs of persons with disabilities, increased efficiency of data collection, procedures for including disability populations in federally-funded health studies, and outcome reporting that is responsive to stakeholder needs.