Sport, Health & Wellbeing
Ahead of the game to translate research into practice
University of Canberra PhD student and 2019 UC Three Minute Thesis (3MT) winner, Elizabeth Webb is hoping that her research will demonstrate compression therapy is an effective non pharmaceutical intervention for patients with chronic swelling who suffer from recurrent cellulitis, and change people’s lives.
Cellulitis is a painful bacterial skin infection that is the third most common reason for someone to present to the emergency department, contributing to almost 130,000 patient presentations per year in Australia. Of those patients nearly half will continue to be admitted to hospital, which has a significant associated health expense.
It can occur to anyone, and anywhere on the body. Most often, it affects the lower legs, and particularly in those who have chronic swelling. Tragically, of all the patients who have one episode of cellulitis, they have up to a 50% chance of a recurrent episode within a few years.
Back in June 2017 Elizabeth and her lymphoedema physiotherapy team at the Calvary Public Hospital Bruce wanted to explore whether compression therapy, which they commonly used for the treatment of chronically swollen legs, would reduce the frequency these patients were being burdened by this common infection.
“We would see lots of patients who would develop cellulitis, ending up in hospital and out of work for weeks”.
Compression bandaging and daily wear of compression stockings is the standard treatment for chronic leg swelling. Patients with chronic swelling in their lower limbs are at an increased risk of getting cellulitis.
“In our practice, we have always hoped that if we can control a patient’s swelling, it would reduce their risk of getting these infections”
Although there are several international papers which suggest that compression therapy is a key component in preventing cellulitis in these patients, until now there has been no research to confirm this theory. So, Elizabeth and her team set out on starting a research project, which evolved into her PhD.
“I chose this research project because of the lack of evidence demonstrating whether compression therapy was an effective preventative treatment of recurrent cellulitis in patients with chronic swelling”
I think my research has the potential to impact a huge number of people within Australia and around the world.
Elizabeth is conducting a randomised controlled trial to test her theory and confirm whether it is an effective treatment.
“We have 84 patients enrolled in the trial so far, and the preliminary results are looking very promising”
Elizabeth’s research has recently been thrown into the spotlight after she won the UC final of the 3MT, an international competition for research students to showcase their research.
Competitors had to explain their research and convince the judges of its significance in just three minutes for a ticket to participate at the 3MT Asia-Pacific final.
“The 3MT competition challenged me to learn how to communicate my research in an impactful, understandable, exciting and engaging way. Turns out it is really difficult to compress a PhD thesis into a three minute presentation”
Elizabeth will be heading off to the University of Queensland in October for the final, where representatives from over 50 Universities will battle it out for the chance to win up to $5,000 for their research.
Elizabeth is passionate about her research and is excited to present it at the final.
“Presenting at the final gives me another great opportunity to promote my research, and to meet other new researchers from around the region”.
Words by Katarina Slavich, photos supplied