Dr Claire Howard, a stroke specialist orthoptist at Salford Royal has been awarded a prestigious Advanced Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship (ACAF) through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). This is the first time one of these fellowships has been awarded to an orthoptist.
She has been awarded £750,000 over a five-year fellowship to develop a new intervention for visual impairment caused by stroke. Her research, in collaboration with University of Liverpool, University of Oxford and a technology company Citrus Suite, will develop a smartphone application to deliver virtual reality-based training at the hospital bedside and in the community. Part of the fellowship will fund the work of a research assistant. This is an exciting opportunity for a healthcare professional to work alongside Dr Howard for three years and develop the outcome measures that are important to patients.
Dr Howard said:
“This research focuses on homonymous visual field loss which affects around 30% of stroke survivors. My research aims to develop a new low-cost treatment for visual field loss, so people can do training in hospital or in their own homes as soon as possible after stroke. This new training has the potential to benefit thousands of people with visual field loss by improving their ability to use visual skills in their non-seeing field. I am excited to start this important work and would like to thank everyone who has supported me in the application process and in obtaining this important fellowship.”