Canadian Frailty Network announces recipients of Early Career Researcher Awards
This past spring, the Canadian Frailty Network (CFN) held the Springboard Grants Program – Early Career Researcher Competition to fund outstanding early career researchers (ECRs) whose work addresses older adults living with frailty, and/or their family and friend caregivers. CFN is pleased to announce the five award recipients: Dr. Ashwini Namasivayam-MacDonald, Dr. Carmel Montgomery, Dr. Dylan Kobsar, Dr. Olga Theou, and Dr. Sarina Isenberg.
This competition was designed to help ECRs build skills and knowledge, and allow them to develop early-stage research programs such that they are competitive for future, larger funding opportunities.
A condition of the funding was that the proposed research must meaningfully integrate older Canadians and/or their families/caregivers.
Each of their projects addresses a unique aspect of frailty in older adults and/or supports for their family and friend caregivers. Collectively, the projects make a broad contribution to the research in this field. Their projects are as follows:
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Dr. Ashwini Namasivayam-MacDonald, Understanding how frailty and physical function are related to swallowing impairments in older adults |
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Dr. Carmel Montgomery, Hospital Discharge Follow-up Care of ICU Patients with Preadmission Frailty |
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Dr. Dylan Kobsar, Integrating Biomechanical Technologies with Orthopaedic Clinics to Improve Surgical Outcomes for Knee Osteoarthritis |
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Dr. Olga Theou, Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in Primary Care for Older Adults Living with Frailty |
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Dr. Sarina Isenberg, Advancing the Care Experience in PAlliative care patient Transitions from subacute to Home – Bruyere (ACEPATH-Bruyere): Co-designing an intervention to improve patient and family caregiver experiences |
The recipients are excited to begin their work and make an impact in the lives of older adults living with frailty, and their family and friend caregivers. When accepting her award, Dr. Montgomery shared, “This is amazing news! On behalf of our team, I sincerely thank the CFN for their support of our research project, and myself as an early career researcher.”
As part of this competition, CFN also partnered with AGE-WELL, Perley Health, and Sepsis Canada on three co-funded awards. Each award was given to an outstanding ECR whose research demonstrates an overlap between frailty and each partner’s focus. This included frailty and AgeTech (AGE-WELL), older adults and/or Veterans living in long-term care (Perley Health), and the intersection of rehabilitation, frailty, and sepsis (Sepsis Canada).
A list of all projects funded through the competition can be found here.