Profiles of excellence.

The Scientific Review Committee (SRC) consists of volunteers who generously donate their expertise and time to review all funding applications that the Foundation receives. Committee members also present the forum "Foundation Funding: How to Get It" at APTA conferences, and they provide consultation on research issues. The Foundation appreciates this Committee's service to the Foundation and to the profession. The new members of the SRC for 2005 are:

G Kelley Fitzgerald, PT, PhD, OCS, Assistant Professor Department of Physical Therapy, University of Pittsburgh, was awarded Foundation doctoral funding in 1995 and in 1997 for his work on "Compensation Patterns in Patients With Knee Instability." He was funded by the Foundation in 2090 for research on "High Intensity Electrical Stimulation for Quadriceps Femoris Strength Training in Postoperative Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Rehabilitation."

Dr Fitzgerald's 1995 and 1997 Foundation doctoral funding led to the development of a knee stability training program that was modified and tested as an adjunct to strength and mobility exercises for improving pain, physical function, and lower extremity bio-mechanics in people with knee osteoarthritis. The effectiveness of this training program will be determined in a $1,425,000 grant awarded to Dr Fitzgerald in April 2004 from the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH). His project will test the effectiveness (in decreasing pain and improving physical function and lower-extremity biomechanics) of supplementing traditional therapeutic exercise with knee stability training techniques tailored for people with osteoarthritis of the knee.

Carolyn Patten, PT, PhD, is Research Scientist, Rehabilitation Research & Development Center/Bone & Joint Research Center--VA Palo Alto Health Care System, and Consulting Assistant Professor; Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Stanford University Medical School. She received Foundation funding for her doctoral studies on "Neural Plasticity of Human Motor Unit Control Properties" in 1994, for "Neural Adaptations in Human Motor Unit Control Properties" in 1995, and for her dissertation project "Neural and Structural Motor Unit Contributions to Muscular Force on Older Adults" in 1996. In 1998 and 1999, Patten was awarded a training fellowship (NIFTI).

Dr Patten also received a Career Development Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Service that allowed her to study motor unit discharge activity in individuals with poststroke hemiplegia. Her NIFTI fellowship added a significant dimension to this research, allowing the expected findings regarding the physiological impairment at the motor unit level to be related to disability at the level of movement function. Dr Patten is currently the principal investigator of a study, "Therapeutic Effects on Neuromuscular Function in Post-Stroke Hemiparesis," which was funded through a 3-year grant from the Veterans Administration. This double-blind, randomized clinical trial of lower-extremity physical rehabilitation attempts to identify mechanisms of adaptation to therapeutic intervention in adults with poststroke hemiparesis, using clinical, biomechanical, and physiological examination tools.

Christopher Powers, PT, PhD, Associate Professor and Assistant Chair, Department of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, and Director, Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Research Laboratory, University of Southern California, received Foundation funding from 1993 to 1995 for his doctoral research on "The Role of the Vasti in Patellar Kinematics and Patello-femoral Pain." In 2002, he received a Foundation research grant for his study, "The Effects of a Single Intervention on Pain Response and Lumbar Segmental Mobility in Persons with Low Back Pain: A Comparison of Spine Mobility and Active Extension Using Dynamic MRI."

In 2003, Powers completed a project funded by the National Athletic Training Association, "Biomechanical and Neuromuscular Aspects of Non-Contact Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injuries: The Influence of Gender, Experience and Training." He is currently funded by the Whitaker Foundation lot research on the biomechanical determinants of patellofemoral stress. Dr Powers is a co-investigator on the project, "Muscle Specific Strengthening Effectiveness Post Lumbar Microdiscectomy" (MUSSEL), in the Foundation-funded Clinical Research Network.

Sue Ann Sisto, PT, MA, PhD, Director of the Human Performance Laboratory-Research Department, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation, received Foundation funding in 1994 for her study "Differences in Baseline and After Exercise Activity Levels in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Using a Portable Activity Monitor."

Dr Sisto is currently the Collaborative Director of the Collaboration on the Upper Limb Pain in Spinal Cord Injury (CULP-SCI) Collaborative Grant Multicenter Trial funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), NIH. She is also the principal investigator of a project on another grant funded by NIDRR, "The Prevalence, Management and Maintenance of Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Individuals With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury." Dr Sisto has received funding from corporations and foundations in addition to federal funding. She serves on the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Services grant review panel and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) grant review panels at NIH.