As one of three key initiatives for The Mind your Brain Foundation®, our Research Fellowships are designed to fill a gap in the continuity of care for TBI patients who seek rehabilitation options for a lifetime of improvement. We are focusing on several areas of research with select partners in the Philadelphia area, based on their clinical expertise and available resources.
Brain Injury Rehabilitation through Telehealth and Mobile Health Clinical Neuropsychology
This proposal outlines our initial fellowship with Moss Rehab (www.mossrehab.com), a provider network of rehabilitation services and support with a core focus on TBI. This Fellowship, in partnership with Moss Rehab, prepares a graduate level neuropsychology fellow for clinical and scholarly activity focusing on brain injury rehabilitation that utilizes telehealth and mobile health technologies.
The Telehealth/Mobile Health Fellowship program will encompass one academic year, and includes supervision from staff neuropsychologists at MossRehab Hospital (https://www.mossrehab.com) and MossRehab Research Institute (https://mrri.org). Onsite time at MossRehab Hospital will be divided between providing direct clinical care to adults with traumatic brain injury, and compiling a literature review/resource guide on available telehealth and mobile health technology platforms for use in brain injury rehabilitation.
We have selected Nicholas Hope for this Fellowship program. Nicholas is a Doctoral Program (Psy.D.) in Clinical Psychology candidate (2022 graduation) at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Nicholas also has a Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) in Counseling Psychology (2017) from Temple University, and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Human Development and Family Studies and a Minor in Sociology (2015) from Penn State.
Access to Services for Survivors of Traumatic Brain Injury: a Mixed-Methods Analysis of Resource Availability for Persons with TBI
The aim of the study is to identify potential barriers to treatment and rehabilitation for people with TBI. We will have a brief online survey that we hope to distribute to as many survivors of TBI as possible. This will collect qualitative data on things like how many people knew that there was funding available; how many were able to apply for funding, and how many received it; what barriers stood in the way of accessing funding (cognitive, financial, access based on location, etc). There will also be a qualitative portion where I hope to talk to five survivors of TBI who have received community re-entry services about their experience and five survivors who have not received funding to discuss what would be helpful in their rehabilitation. This fellowship grant was awarded to Claire Sitarz. She has worked in case management and service delivery for persons with brain injury and neurological disorders for nearly 10 years. Currently, she works for the School District of Philadelphia assisting students living with brain injury through Pennsylvania’s BrainSTEPS program. Claire is pursuing her Master’s of Social Work at West Chester University
