About the Project
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Greater Manchester (CLAHRC GM) invites applications for the following 3-year full-time PhD studentship. Due to commence September 2014, funding provides an annual tax-free stipend of £13, 863, and full coverage of tuition fees. Applicants must be UK/EU nationals due to the nature of the award.
Reading is an inherently complex process, requiring the active integration of linguistic, motor, visual and perceptual processes. Reading problems can affect many life domains such as independence, employment and reading for pleasure. Stroke may affect reading in many ways including loss of visual field; unstable binocular vision; inability to make co-ordinated eye movements across the text or a cognitive/linguistic deficit which impairs word recognition. These impairments appear to be common but there is little information about their co-existence, or about their interaction with common co-morbidities.
Details on the incidence and impact of, and possible interventions for, reading difficulties are critical to informing future commissioning and planning of services for the care of this population and for the education of stroke teams in identification and referral.
The PhD study will employ existing standardised visual, ocular-motor, linguistic/cognitive and behavioural measures to carry out an investigation among consecutive patients identified through routine NHS six-month reviews across Greater Manchester. Incidence of the different types of reading impairment will be determined, and validated questionnaires used to explore the symptoms that prove challenging for this population. To aid in timely differential diagnosis, we will design a "reading problems test”. This will need to accurately reveal the specific impairments present, yet remain feasible to use: subsequently, we would hope to see this adopted as a screening test.
In parallel, the project would also identify the range of interventions which already exist for each of the reading problems, the referral pathways for them and accessibility within current NHS stroke services. There is currently little evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for visual problems in this patient group, and we would seek to inform future studies to obtain high quality evidence.
The successful candidate will benefit from multi-disciplinary training in neuroscience (behaviour, vision, cognition), impairments (unilateral neglect, low vision, aphasia/dyslexia); and methodologies (experimental and case series investigations, clinical trials, systematic reviews). This would reflect a rich combination of skills-sets supporting the step into a related postdoctoral career.
Candidates are expected to hold a minimum upper-second (or equivalent) undergraduate degree in a relevant social/health/neurosciences/speech-language therapy subject. A Masters qualification or relevant research experience would be a distinct advantage.
Please direct applications in the following format to Professor Chris Dickinson ([Email Address Removed]):
• CV
• Official academic transcripts.
• Contact details for two suitable referees.
• A personal statement (1, 000 words maximum) outlining your suitability for the study, and how you plan to implement the theoretical/methodological approaches outlined in the project description.
• A brief statement (<100 words) describing how you view this project contributing to overall CLAHRC GM objectives and its importance in delivering improved patient-centred care.
Any enquiries relating to the project and/or suitability should be directed to Professor Dickinson at the address above. Deadline for applications: 11 April 2014.
A number of CLAHRC GM PhD projects are currently inviting applications, to view the full set please visit: http://www.findaphd.com/search/PhDDetails.aspx?CAID=2422
http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/people/profile/?alias=dickinsonc
http://clahrc-gm.nihr.ac.uk/
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