Find out more about Dr. Alison Aries in her biography
I played a key role in the development of the Stroke Early Supported Discharge (ESD) service in Wolverhampton. I work part-time as a lecturer within the School of Allied Health Professions and also work as a Clinical Academic in the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust driving neurological research.
My research interests lie predominantly in neurology, including, neuroplasticity and rehabilitation of stroke patients. I completed my PhD ‘Somatosensory stimulation to improve lower-limb recovery after stroke’, finishing in 2020.
As part of a prestigious NIHR Clinical Academic Doctoral fellowship (completed between April 2015 and March 2018) I successfully developed standardised protocols and then set up and ran a mixed-methods, randomized, blinded feasibility study exploring sensory stimulation to the foot post-stroke.
Details of this study can be found at the following link, Orcid link here
This three-year fellowship also enabled further development of my clinical and leadership skills and opportunities to build international collaborations.
In preparation for the fellowship, I worked as a blinded assessor for the FAST INdiCATE trial:
Clinical efficacy of functional strength training for upper limb motor recovery early after stroke: neural correlates and prognostic indicators
This multi-centre, randomised, controlled, observer-blind trial was funded by the NIHR/MRC Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) programme, and was sponsored by University of East Anglia, Norwich.
My current NIHR CRN Research Scholarship and a West Midlands Post-Doctoral Bridging Fellowship will facilitate moving my research forward to help benefit stroke survivors in the future.