Joanna Fletcher-Smith

Contact

• workRoom B108 Medical School
  Queen's Medical Centre
  Nottingham
  NG7 2UH
  UK
• work0115 823 0432
• joanna.fletcher-smith@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

Joanna is a Health Professionals Council (HPC) registered occupational therapist by professional background and is employed by the University of Nottingham as a research therapist working on a phase III cluster RCT of occupational therapy for care home residents with stroke.

Joanna was previously the research OT on Professor Marion Walker's 'DRESS' study.

She completed her MPhil at Nottingham and was awarded the Community Health Sciences part-time studentship to complete her PhD on Occupational Therapy for Stroke survivors residing in UK Care homes.

Joanna has presented at national and international conferences and won the UKOTRF 'Research Capacity Award', the 'Early Researcher Award' and the 'Verna Wright Prize' for her research in stroke rehabilitation.

She is the Research and Development officer for the National Executive Committee of the College of Occupational Therapists Specialist Section for Neurological Practice and a member of the Society for Research in Rehabilitation.

Joanna is a reviewer for the Royal College of Physicians Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party and the British Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Expertise Summary

Keywords:

Occupational therapy, stroke rehabilitation, dressing and cognition, therapy in care homes

Teaching Summary

Joanna Fletcher-Smith teaches on the Stroke module for the MSc in Rehabilitation and is an accredited Practice Placement Educator for the College of Occupational Therapists.

She also devised and teaches a stroke course consisting of six modules to care home staff working in the OTCH study participating care homes.

Research Summary

Joanna Fletcher-Smith's main area of research interest is stroke rehabilitation, and she is involved with a number of current trials and projects in this area. Joanna was the Research Occupational… read more

Selected Publications

• FLETCHER-SMITH, J., WALKER, M., SUNDERLAND, A., GARVEY, K., WAN, A. and TURNER, H., 2010. An interrater reliability study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 73(12), 570-578

• View all publications

Oral Presentations and posters

Platform Presentations

• "A survey to explore the acceptability of the treatment approaches used in the DRESS Study", UK Stroke Forum Conference, Glasgow, November 2011.
• "Does upper limb hemiparesis affect dressing performance in cognitively impaired Stroke survivors?", College of Occupational Therapists Annual Conference, Brighton, June 2011
• "To What extent does Upper Limb Hemiparesis affect Dressing Performance in the Presence of Cognitive Impairment?", Society for Research in Rehabilitation Winter Conference, Cardiff, February 2011.
• "Dressing Rehabilitation Stroke Study: a randomized controlled trial (The DRESS Study)", UK Stroke Forum Conference, Glasgow, December 2010.
• "Dressing Rehabilitation Post Stroke", College of Occupational Therapists Specialist Section Neurological Practice Stroke Conference, Manchester, September 2010. (Invited speaker)
• "An Inter-Rater Reliability Study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment (NSDA)", College of Occupational Therapists Annual Conference, Brighton, June 2010.

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Poster Presentations

• "The inter-rater reliability of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment", UK Stroke Forum, Glasgow, 2010.
• "To what extent does upper limb hemiparesis affect dressing performance in the presence of cognitive impairment?", UK Stroke Forum, Glasgow, 2010.
• "The Inter-Rater Reliability of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment (NSDA)", European Stroke Conference, Barcelona, Spain, May 2010.
• "An Inter-Rater Reliability Study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment (NSDA) - Work in Progress", Society for Research in Rehabilitation Conference, Salford, February 2010
• "An Inter-Rater Reliability Study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment (NSDA) - Work in Progress", Society for Research in Rehabilitation Conference, Derby, February 2009.
• "Dressing Rehabilitation Evaluation Stroke Study-Work in Progress", UK Stroke Forum Conference, Glasgow, December 2009
• "Dressing Rehabilitation Evaluation Stroke Study-Work in Progress", UK Stroke Forum Conference, Harrogate, December 2008.

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Prizes and Awards

• "Verna Wright Prize", Society for Research in Rehabilitation, 2010.
• "Early Researcher Award", College of Occupational Therapists, 2010.
• "Postgraduate Travel Award to attend and present at the European Stroke Conference in Barcelona", School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, 2010.
• "Research Capacity Award", College of Occupational Therapists, 2009.
• "Postgraduate Student Scholarship", Constance Owens Memorial Trust, 2009.
• "Postgraduate Student Scholarship", Elizabeth Casson Trust, 2008.
• "Travel scholarship for attendance at the World Federation of Occupational Therapists Congress in Stockholm, Sweden", The Elizabeth Casson Trust, 2002.
• "Student Travel Scholarship to attend World Federation of Occupational Therapists Congress in Stockholm, Sweden" Northumbria University, June 2002.

Current Research

Joanna Fletcher-Smith's main area of research interest is stroke rehabilitation, and she is involved with a number of current trials and projects in this area. Joanna was the Research Occupational Therapist on the Dressing Rehabilitation Evaluation Stroke Study (DRESS), a recently submitted phase II Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of a neuropsychologically informed approach to dressing rehabilitation for cognitively impaired patients with stroke.

Read more about the DRESS study

She is the Research Occupational Therapist for the Nottingham Centre of the Occupational Therapy in Care Homes (OTCH) study. OTCH is a £1.9 million multi-centre HTA funded study, the main study centre of which is based at the University of Birmingham, with Chief Investigator Prof. Catherine Sackley. It involves a cluster RCT of an occupational therapy intervention for residents with stroke living in UK care homes, and plans to run for 3 years.

Read more about the OTCH study

Joanna completed an inter-rater reliability study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment (NSDA), which was the primary outcome measure used on the DRESS RCT and in previous dressing research in Nottingham.

She was involved in the upper body dressing study, exploring the importance of bimanual skills when dressing in the presence of cognitive impairment.

She also worked on an acceptability study, which compared the conventional functional dressing rehabilitation approach to the neuropsychological approach to dressing used in the DRESS study.

• FLETCHER-SMITH, J.C., WALKER, M.F. and DRUMMOND, A., 2012. The influence of hand use on dressing outcome in cognitively impaired stroke survivors British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 75(1), 2-9
• FLETCHER-SMITH JC, WALKER MF, SUNDERLAND A and DRUMMOND A, 2012. To what extent does upper limb hemiparesis affect dressing performance in the presence of cognitive impairment? Clinical Rehabilitation. 26(3), 282-3
• WALKER MF, SUNDERLAND A, FLETCHER-SMITH J, DRUMMOND A, LOGAN P, EDMANS JA, GARVEY K, DINEEN RA, INCE P, HORNE J, FISHER RJ and TAYLOR J, 2011. The DRESS trial: a feasibility randomise trial of a neuropsychological approach to dressing therapy for stroke inpatients. Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation.
• FLETCHER-SMITH, J., WALKER, M., SUNDERLAND, A., GARVEY, K., WAN, A. and TURNER, H., 2010. An interrater reliability study of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 73(12), 570-578
• LANNIN, N., GUSTAFSSON, L., CUSICK, A., WALKER, M., STEULTJENS, E., FRICKE, J., TURTON, A., AAS, R.W., LOGAN, P., FROUDE, E., MCCLUSKEY, A., DRUMMOND, A., CORR, S., FLETCHER-SMITH, J., RADFORD, K. and PI, 2009. Scholarly communication and concerns for our conferences Australian Occupational Therapy Journal. 56(2), 147-8