Colleen O’Connell
Principal Applicant
Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Dalhousie University
Physiatrist, Medical Director and Research Chief at Horizon’s Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation
NMD4C Involvement: Pillar 2: Clinical Research, Pillar 3: Clinical Practice Research, Theme 5: Open Science
Research Interests: Applied technologies for mobility impairment and function, patient reported outcomes, Strokes, ASL
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Biography
Truly an East-coaster, and never far from water, Colleen completed medical school at Memorial in Newfoundland, residency in PM&R at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia and is Medical Director at New Brunswick’s Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation and Clinical Research Director of UNB Institute of Biomedical Engineering. She married a Campbell from Prince Edward Island, thus establishing connection with all four Atlantic provinces. She is Professor at Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Kinesiology. Believing in the strength of collaboration, or perhaps having difficulty saying no, she is a member of many networks: Canadian ALS Research Network, Praxis Spinal Cord Institute, Canadian Neurologic Diseases Network, Atlantic Mobility Action Project. Research interests and outputs are broad, reflecting a tendency to being an early adopter (FOMO), including applied technologies for mobility impairment and function, patient reported outcomes. Development of best practice recommendations are priorities, and she contributes as member of the PVA SCI Guidelines Consortium, Heart and Stroke’s Best Practices Advisory Committee, Canadian SCI Pain Guidelines Committee, ALS Canada Best Practice Recommendations Working Group and the Canadian Thoracic Society Home Mechanical Ventilation Guidelines Committee.
International health work predates medical training. With husband Jeff and a team of rehabilitation volunteers she founded Team Canada Healing Hands in 2002, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing rehabilitation capacity in lower resourced countries. She has had opportunity to work in areas of rehabilitation care, training, and disaster response in many countries. She is chair of the Disaster committee of the International Spinal Cord Society, and is currently appointed to the Spinal Cord Injury technical working group of the WHO Emergency Medical Teams and SCI Modules for national health systems, and steering committee of the WHO World Rehabilitation Alliance.
She is proud mom of her young adult sons Sam and Vénel. In another life, she would have been an adventure travel agent.
Recent Publications
Mehdipour, A, Teshler, L, Dal Bello-Haas, V, Richardson, J, Beauchamp, M, Turnbull, J et al.. Assessing the Measurement Properties of the Self-Administered Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R): A Rasch Analysis. Phys Ther. 2023.103 (11) PMID:37581600
Wajnberg, G, Allain, EP, Roy, JW, Srivastava, S, Saucier, D, Morin, P Jr et al.. Application of annotation-agnostic RNA sequencing data analysis tools for biomarker discovery in liquid biopsy. Front Bioinform. 2023.3 1127661 PMID:37252342
Whelan, A, McVeigh, S, Barker, P, Glennie, A, Wang, D, Chen, M et al.. The effect of rurality and distance from care on health outcomes, environmental barriers, and healthcare utilization patterns in persons with traumatic spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord. 2023.61 (7)399-408 PMID:37169867
Saucier, D, Registe, PPW, Bélanger, M, O'Connell, C. Urbanization, air pollution, and water pollution: Identification of potential environmental risk factors associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis using systematic reviews. Front Neurol. 2023.14 1108383 PMID:36970522
Abedi, A, Biering-Sørensen, F, Chhabra, HS, D'Andréa Greve, JM, Khan, NM, Koskinen, E et al.. An international survey of the structure and process of care for traumatic spinal cord injury in acute and rehabilitation facilities: lessons learned from a pilot study. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022.22 (1)1565 PMID:36544168
Slayter, J, Casey, L, O'Connell, C. Patient Reported Outcome Measures in Adult Spinal Muscular Atrophy: A Scoping Review and Graphical Visualization of the Evidence. J Neuromuscul Dis. 2023.10 (2)239-250 PMID:36530090
Mills, PB, Phadke, CP, Boulias, C, Dukelow, SP, Ismail, F, McNeil, SM et al.. Spasticity Management Teams, Evaluations, and Tools: A Canadian Cross-Sectional Survey. Can J Neurol Sci. 2023.50 (6)876-884 PMID:36408628
Salbach, NM, Mountain, A, Lindsay, MP, Blacquiere, D, McGuff, R, Foley, N et al.. Canadian Stroke Best Practice Recommendations: Virtual Stroke Rehabilitation Interim Consensus Statement 2022. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2022.101 (11)1076-1082 PMID:35767008
Bhomia, M, Balakathiresan, N, Zhai, M, Alphonso-Morrison, A, Tung, M, Finn, S et al.. Association of Peripheral Serum MicroRNAs With Persistent Phantom Limb Pain in Individuals With Amputation. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2022.101 (12)1139-1147 PMID:35701872
Van Damme, J, Kuspinar, A, Johnston, W, O'Connell, C, Turnbull, J, Chum, M et al.. Refining items for a preference-based, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis specific, health-related quality of life scale. Amyotroph Lateral Scler Frontotemporal Degener. 2022.23 (7-8)508-516 PMID:35147072
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