Category: Interdisciplinary Health

Wolff brings hands-on approach to musculoskeletal anatomy course

May 22, 2025 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Many students majoring in HK want to pursue careers in occupational therapy, physical therapy and athletic training

Whitney Wolff was asked to develop a musculoskeletal anatomy course (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

Whitney Wolff had just completed a semester as an assistant professor at tiny Lakeland University in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, when the opportunity to work at an R1 university arose.

Wolff, who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2022, taught at Lakeland—student population approximately 2,500—that fall before applying to the Department of Health and Kinesiology in the College of Applied Health Sciences. As part of this process, the department asked her to develop a musculoskeletal anatomy course.

“Our HK faculty identified a need for a musculoskeletal anatomy course so the students could strengthen their understanding in an applied setting,” said Wolff, now a teaching assistant professor in Health and Kinesiology. 

Many students majoring in HK want to pursue careers in occupational therapy, physical therapy and athletic training, and those fields dovetail with Wolff’s experience.

“I was on the pre-physical therapy track for the first three years of my undergraduate degree. I went to a university that required a semester-long, 40-hour a week internship and an extensive practicum experience, both of which I spent in a physical therapy setting,” she said. “I had a lot of experience observing and shadowing physical therapists, and it just wasn’t for me. However, I was able to draw on those experiences while designing this course.”

Wolff’s academic journey began with a B.S. in Exercise Science and a Master of Education in Kinesiology from Bowling Green State University, followed by a Ph.D. in Movement Science from the University of Michigan.

When she saw a faculty position open at Illinois, she jumped at the chance.

“It was primarily Illinois’ strong kinesiology program and the opportunity to be a part of a department that values both research and teaching. I was also excited by the high caliber of students that I’d be able to teach and mentor,” she said as to why she chose to come to Illinois.

Wolff believes her knowledge of the field as well as her methods are beneficial to students.

“I really challenge my students to develop a set of practical skills that will benefit them in graduate school and beyond. This is why I emphasize hands-on experience and less of ‘Can I memorize this information and then ace an exam’?”

“My approach to this course has been shaped by my experiences as well as knowing that these students want to be successful in very challenging careers.”

Wolff wanted the course to be more experiential learning and not just “listening to me talk about anatomy.”

Since kinesiology-related careers often involve working with other people, it’s an important experience for the students so that they discover whether this is a good fit for them

Whitney Wolff

Teaching Assistant Professor, Health and Kinesiology

“I designed musculoskeletal anatomy to be a lab-based course where 90 percent of the students’ time in class is spent completing hands-on activities. They’re working through the process themselves, and I can really see them grow and improve rapidly. It has been a really fun class to develop.”

Wolff informed the course design by talking with friends and colleagues who went through our nation’s leading physical therapy programs, asking about how they prepare for patient-clinician interactions and what anatomy courses are like in those programs.

“In typical undergraduate anatomy courses, (students) learn to identify the muscles on an image or on a plasticized model, whereas you look at us, we’re covered in skin and subcutaneous fat. Kinesiologists need to be able to identify muscles and bony landmarks on a living, breathing person that moves and changes position.”

As much “hands-on” learning as there is, Wolff is more “hands-off,” allowing students to explore and practice without fear of making mistakes. 

And if students aren’t comfortable with being touched or touching others, Wolff will accommodate in class but did acknowledge that that could be a sign a student is in the wrong major.

“Since kinesiology-related careers often involve working with other people, it’s an important experience for the students so that they discover whether this is a good fit for them,” she said.

In addition to teaching, Wolff’s research focuses on the biomechanical presentation of idiopathic chronic neck pain in males and females. Her ultimate research goal is to design and implement workplace interventions aimed at preventing and treating idiopathic chronic neck pain. 

Wolff said part of that research will involve how to manipulate seated posture without the need for an expensive ergonomic chair.

“(Neck pain) is often linked with static work postures such as sitting at a computer, so (an intervention) could be movement-based or could include adjustments to shoulder, head and neck posture. If we can identify the seated posture that decreases musculoskeletal strain of the neck and shoulder while being comfortable enough that an individual can maintain the posture, that could potentially decrease the likelihood of developing idiopathic chronic neck pain,” she said.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Can a special diet promote children’s focus?

May 22, 2025 | Ethan Simmons

HK researchers found that the school children who more closely adhered to a special diet showed better control over their attention

A diet rich in fiber and antioxidants shows promise for children’s mental abilities, according to Shelby Keye’s research (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

A diet rich in fiber and antioxidants, low in fat and full of colorful berries and vegetables has shown a strong connection to slowed cognitive decline in older adults. This same Mediterranean-influenced diet shows promise for children’s mental abilities, too. 

A recent study led by University of Illinois Health and Kinesiology Assistant Professor Shelby Keye compared elementary school kids’ food intake to this specific diet pattern—fittingly called the MIND diet—and measured how those kids performed on a task designed to challenge their attention span. 

Keye and a team of researchers, including Health and Kinesiology Associate Professor Naiman Khan and Illinois Nutritional Sciences Ph.D. candidate Tori Holthaus, found that the school children who more closely adhered to this special diet showed better control over their attention. 

“When we see something in older adults, we’re like, ‘I wonder if we’re going to see that same thing with kids?’” Keye said. “That was the question: will the MIND diet be related to children’s cognitive skills?’”

The MIND diet is short for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. It’s a combination of the popular Mediterranean diet—which prioritizes beans, leafy vegetables, berries, seafood and olive oil—and the DASH diet, originally built to combat hypertension. 

Researchers at Rush University in Chicago combined elements of these two diets and found certain components were related to better cognitive health in older adults. 

To investigate whether the MIND diet had positive effects for kids’ brain health, the research team decided to study a pressing skill for any school-age child: paying attention. 

In early life, the human brain is developing all of its cognitive skills simultaneously. But in certain phases of development, specific skills are growing faster and are more sensitive to a person’s changes in health, Keye said. 

“Attention and inhibition around that elementary age is a particularly sensitive skill to health behaviors,” Keye said. “It may be because you have started school. And now, you’re in this environment where you have to inhibit, you have to prevent yourself from turning around and talking to your friend or even inhibit yourself from listening to internal thoughts.” 

Their study marks the first time the MIND diet has been analyzed in a population this young. The diet’s connection to attention control opens the gates for more specific, involved research into the diet’s potential effects.

“With us finding this relationship with the MIND diet, that means that those foods that are important for older adults could be just as important for children,” Keye said. 

To answer their question, the research team collected a week’s worth of dietary records for 129 local children, ages 7 to 11 years old. Parents of the child participants were tasked with recording everything their kid ate or drank for seven days, in close consultation with their children. 

The children’s diets were scored on their proximity to the MIND diet pattern versus the most recent Healthy Eating Index, a set of dietary guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The two diets are similar but emphasize different food groups: The MIND diet encourages more berries and olive oil, for example. 

Before gathering their diet records, the researchers collected the children’s demographic and anthropometric data—height, weight, age and the like. And each participant completed a cognitive test designed to challenge their focus, called the Eriksen-Flanker task. 

The task asks participants to look at a series of rapidly flashing arrows pointing in different directions on a computer screen, and mark which direction the arrow in the center of the image was pointing. (For kids, the arrows are replaced with pictures of fish.) 

The children who ate foods closer to the MIND diet scored more accurately on the attention task. The positive relationship did not show significant differences based on the children’s overall caloric intake, sex or household income. 

No significant relationship was found with the kids’ scores on the Healthy Eating Index guidelines. 

The children who ate foods closer to the MIND diet scored more accurately on the attention task.

“This is one study, and it’s one of the first,” Keye said. “But because we found a relationship, there is most likely something there.” 

As for why the diet had a relationship to attention control, Keye said a few possibilities are worth further research. 

Many of the dark green vegetables and berries present in the MIND diet are rich in antioxidants, which have an anti-inflammatory effect that helps with brain development and function, she said. 

Weight could also play a role. A separate study found that children who followed the MIND diet had a lower weight status on average—a higher weight status can relate to greater levels of inflammation and poorer cognitive performance. 

Also, physical activity and diet quality tend to go together in people, Keye said. It could be that the kids who ate more MIND diet foods focused better because of a healthier, more active lifestyle.  

Is the evidence enough to start changing children’s diets? More research is needed into the potential cause-and-effect, but if the benefits interest you, “I would not stray away,” Keye said. 

“I always try to just keep it simple while doing this type of work. Sometimes I find that people will read about this and say, ‘I’ve got to change all these things about my life,’” Keye said. “I study behavior change a little bit, and I find that it’s easier to start simple and do one thing.”

If the MIND diet’s potential benefits seem compelling, try adding in some berries and smoothies into your meal plan, or cooking with olive oil instead of butter for a week, Keye suggested. 

For now, the results from this study present a few next steps. Future studies can run diet interventions, where researchers control participants’ food intake to fit the MIND diet and observe any effects. Researchers could also make the same analysis of diet and attention control in an even younger group of child participants, or with a wider range of socioeconomic status. 

“We’re just excited to be doing the work and excited to have some interesting results,” Keye said. “And hopefully, one day, we can get a good intervention.”

To contact Shelby Keye, email skeye2@illinois.edu 

The paper, “MIND Diet Pattern Is Associated with Attentional Control in School-Aged Children,” was published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement in January 2025. It is available online.

DOI: 10.1007/s41465-025-00318-4

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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A passion for teaching

May 22, 2025 | Anna Flanagan

Responsibility for teaching many courses offered by the department is also borne by another group of highly qualified individuals known as specialized faculty

Kristen DiFilippo was one of five Illinois faculty awarded for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching this year (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

Like the University of Illinois and the College of Applied Health Sciences, the Department of Health and Kinesiology pursues a three-pronged mission of leadership in research, teaching and service. It is the primary responsibility of tenure-track faculty to advance the research mission by successfully securing grants to support their work and by publishing extensively in the leading journals in their areas of expertise. 

Tenure-track faculty also teach, of course, but responsibility for teaching many courses offered by the department is also borne by another group of highly qualified individuals known as specialized faculty. More than 75% of the department’s specialized faculty hold doctoral degrees in such fields as kinesiology, community health, nutritional science, sociology and education.

“These are individuals who really enjoy teaching, who enjoy interacting with students and helping them along their educational journey,” said Health and Kinesiology Department Head Kim Graber. “They’re passionate about teaching and having an impact on the lives of undergraduate and graduate students.”

“Passion” is the word both Kristen DiFilippo and Kristin Carlson use when talking about teaching. Both hold positions as teaching assistant professors. Carlson was in a tenure-track position at another university when she realized she wasn’t as interested in doing research as she was in working with students. The teaching position at Illinois better aligned with her personal goals, she said, and she seized the opportunity to join the teaching faculty. That the decision was a good one is evidenced by Carlson receiving the 2023 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award: Specialized Faculty from the College of Applied Health Sciences.

“The university is known for its research—and it attracts a lot of students—but they are deeply concerned about the education they are receiving here,” she said. “We are able to provide a high-quality educational experience to our students, and we develop relationships with them as we see them time and again in the various classes we teach.” 

DiFilippo, who was one of five Illinois faculty awarded for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching this year,  shares Carlson’s enthusiasm for her primary role.

“My first love is the classroom, and teaching is valued here,” she said. “Specialized faculty play a significant role in the teaching mission and making sure that there is quality education being provided for our students. We are excited to be in the classroom.”

Some of their responsibilities straddle the line between teaching and service. Carlson, for example, oversees the department’s physical education teacher licensure program. She also serves as an assistant department head with a focus on curriculum. DiFilippo guides students in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences degree program through their required internship experiences as a teacher of the 400-level internship course. She also is the lead teacher for the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences’ annual study abroad experience in Greece. 

These are individuals who really enjoy teaching, who enjoy interacting with students and helping them along their educational journey.

Kim Graber

HK Department head

While the lion’s share of their responsibilities relate to teaching, DiFilippo, Carlson and other members of the teaching faculty also are expected to contribute to the department’s research mission. DiFilippo applies her background in nutritional science to investigations of chronic disease prevention and management through the use of nutrition education and behavior change. She is a principal investigator on a seven-figure grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that supports OneOp, a collaboration with the Department of Defense and Cooperative Extension that provides continuing education opportunities to health care providers who work with military-connected individuals. Carlson, a member of the Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab, focuses her research on incorporating academics into K-12 physical education and enhancing the fitness activities used in physical education classes. 

Although they are not eligible for tenure, DiFilippo and Carlson can apply for promotions similar to tenure-track faculty, from teaching assistant professor to teaching associate professor to teaching professor. Unlike tenure-track faculty, who must apply for tenure after five years or lose their positions, members of the teaching faculty may choose not to submit paperwork for promotion indefinitely, as long as their annual contracts are renewed. 

Graber said the teaching faculty are highly valued by the department and across campus.

“They step up in so many ways that enable the tenure-track faculty to focus on their research,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to offer as many undergraduate and graduate classes as we do with the high quality that we are known for without our professionals who are devoted to teaching. They are a godsend.” 

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HK spring 2025 department head message

May 21, 2025

Kim Graber, Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan professor and head, Department of Health and Kinesiology (Photo by Craig Pessman)

Hello, Health and Kinesiology family,

Welcome to the spring 2025 edition of our newsletter! This marks our first spring semester under our new department name, officially changed last August. We have exciting updates to share and plenty to celebrate.

Inside, you’ll learn about the importance of specialized faculty, how digital-voice assistants support older adults and read about innovative research and a prestigious honor for our faculty. I hope this edition leaves you inspired by our collective impact and the momentum we’re building together.

Wishing you a successful and fulfilling semester!


Warmly,
Kim Graber
Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan Professor and Head, Department of Health and Kinesiology

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AHS students present diverse projects for Undergrad Research Week

May 01, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Students, faculty and staff got a taste of the findings from AHS’ budding student researchers during the AHS Undergraduate Research Expo

Kinesiology juniors Elizabeth Martinez, center, and Aubrey Cervantes, left, present their research at the AHS Undergrad Research Expo (Photo by Ethan Simmons)

For a freshman at the College of Applied Health Sciences, Saiesha Bollapragada’s research portfolio is impressive. 

At last week’s Undergraduate Research Symposium, the I-Health major got to present the results from her first research project, “Public Health Preparedness Among UIUC Students During Extreme Heat Conditions,” where she examined students’ awareness and handling of severe heat in the spring semester. 

She completed her study with a push from Students Pursuing Applications, Research and Knowledge, or SPARK, an AHS program that jump-starts incoming undergraduate students research experiences by pairing them with professors in the college. Bollapragada was placed with Recreation, Sport, and Tourism Associate Professor Mariela Fernandez, whose experience with urban environmental injustices fit her research topic perfectly. 

“Professor Fernandez motivated me to start this project on my own,” Bollapragada said. “There’s a lot more reading involved than I thought there was, it was a lot of work preparing for the symposium, but if it’s something you’re interested in it’s a fun process.” 

Students, faculty and staff got a taste of the findings from AHS’ budding student researchers during the AHS Undergraduate Research Expo at Huff Hall on Wednesday, April 24, where a roster of undergraduates gave poster presentations on a diverse range of research topics.

Many students spearheaded their own research projects with significant support and guidance from faculty and graduate students. Others, like a group of Speech and Hearing Science students from the Intellectual DisAbilities Communication Lab led by Associate Professor Marie Moore Channell, provided updates on long-range research projects they’ve assisted with on campus. 

Three SHS seniors, Emma Mueller, Abigail Keasler and Liz Gremer, presented initial findings from their glimpse into the Speech Accessibility Project, an ongoing research endeavor looking to make voice recognition software—such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa—more accessible for people with different speech patterns.

Each of the students has helped recruit participants with Down syndrome or aided vocal transcriptions from the samples they’ve collected. Under the leadership of Channell, the lab hopes to collect 240,000 voice samples from 400 participants. 

“Our poster looked into the recruiting process with that population and took a look at patterns of articulation differences exhibited by individuals with Down syndrome,” said Mueller, who transcribed vocal samples for the project. 

All three of the students met in Channell’s lab, and immediately found research responsibilities once the Down syndrome portion of the project came under Channell’s purview. 

“It’s been very rewarding, very interesting and very impactful,” Keasler said. “A lot of families in meetings or over the phone say, ‘Siri doesn’t really understand what we’re trying to say,’ so this is very important and I can’t wait to see the results of it.” 

Coming to a project affiliated with SHS with “so much publicity and so much money coming in is encouraging,” said Gremer, who has helped recruit participants and set up their first meetings for collecting voice samples. 

AHS student programs, such as the first-generation focused Mannie L. Jackson Illinois Academic Enrichment and Leadership Program (I-LEAP), were well represented in the research symposium. I-LEAP juniors Elizabeth Martinez and Aubrey Cervantes, both studying kinesiology, brought results from their research collaboration on high-intensity interval training. 

Working within KCH Professor Steve Petruzzello’s Exercise Psychophysiology Lab, the pair analyzed 25 participants’ emotional responses to high-intensity exercise, compared with their scores and symptoms of several mental health qualities: namely anxiety, depression and neuroticism. 

“We were looking at exercise adherence—how can we get more people to get more active—and we were really interested in HIIT exercise, so we put it all together in one research project,” Cervantes said. 

What they found: Participants with more symptoms of depression reported more negative affect responses during the HIIT exercise, while anxiety and neuroticism didn’t show significant predictive power, they said.

“This is my first hands-on [study] that I can call my own and Aubrey’s,” said Martinez, who’s applying to physical therapy schools. “My favorite part is meeting with the participants. It’s so fun getting to know everyone, even if there’s a lot more hours behind the desk just plugging and chugging data.” 

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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Kraay: NPIs, Boosters work to battle COVID-19

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alicia Kraay’s study shows getting vaccine boosters and using non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce cumulative deaths from COVID-19.

In a recent publication, Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Alicia Kraay and her collaborators write that combining boosters and non-pharmaceutical interventions results in a 30 percent decrease in cumulative deaths due to COVID-19, with potential for greater impacts if variant-adapted boosters are used.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions, or NPIs, include wearing a mask and social distancing, but also “surface decontamination and improved hygiene,” said Kraay.

According to Kraay’s publication, “The role of booster vaccination and ongoing viral evolution in seasonal circulation of SARS-CoV-2” in the journal The Royal Society, a rise in COVID-19 infection rates are expected this fall as the use of NPIs is relaxed.

“This year, we expect a fall surge, in part because we expect the transmission rate to be seasonal,” she said. “And we’ve also seen people have relaxed NPIs.”

Kraay attributed the decrease in NPIs in part to pandemic fatigue.

“Also, people’s different perception of safety now that vaccination is more widespread,” she said. “Some of the initial strategies that were proposed are simply not sustainable in the long term. It’s not really possible for elementary schools to do virtual learning only for the next 10 years. And there are issues with feasibility in certain contexts like elementary schools, with adequately distancing young children and getting perfect mask compliance.”

But Kraay wanted to emphasize that the important thing about NPIs is they’re not all or nothing.

“You don’t just tell people, ‘Oh, you need to stay at home now because cases might be increasing, and you should do nothing. That’s, I think, what happened at first early in the pandemic,” she said “You’re not going to get high compliance if you make recommendations like that. And it’s also not scientifically appropriate because not every type of interaction has the same level of risk. I think in order to get NPI compliant, it’s being clear about when NPIs are needed and when they’re not and what type is the most effective.”

Kraay, an infectious disease epidemiologist who did her undergraduate work at North Carolina-Chapel Hill and got her Ph.D. at Michigan, recommends wearing a mask in crowded situations you cannot avoid, and limiting appearances at large gatherings.

In terms of boosters, Kraay said ongoing safety studies will be important to ease concerns about vaccine safety, especially among parents.

“It’s going to be important to understand more about the impact of boosters,” she said. “In my paper, we assumed that boosters could reduce risk of infection. But the booster data hasn’t been fully analyzed yet. Seeing what happens with these variant-specific boosters and are there impacts in reducing transmission, and really quantifying how much it can help if you get boosted … at the population level, I think it could be useful.”

One thing Kraay remains uncertain about is whether the current pandemic has made the United States, and the world, for that matter, better prepared to handle the next global health crisis.

“I think we definitely have a better public health infrastructure, [but] I think there are still challenges from the health care access perspective. We know that there’s been a lot of new sources of funding that have been created to allow researchers to respond quickly to emergent priorities. We also know the way that vaccine development was streamlined is a major achievement.

“We have a better capacity to forecast infectious disease patterns over time. And we have new positions that have been created in pandemic preparedness at academic institutions throughout the country. There are challenges with health care access that I think still need to be worked out, [such as] health care access for marginalized populations. I do think we are in a better position just in terms of being able to respond from a public health and testing perspective, hopefully being able to respond more quickly from a vaccination perspective. The challenge still remaining of how to treat the people who do get sick is what I see going forward.”

And although President Biden declared the pandemic over in September 2022, Kraay isn’t as certain.

“COVID as we knew it in February and March 2020 is over,” she says. “I think that it’s true that our experience of COVID-19 has dramatically changed now. But I don’t think that we’re all the way to the point that it’s just in the background. It’s something that we definitely need to monitor. And we’re just not there yet.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Department Head Message from Kim Graber

Oct. 22, 2022 | Kim Graber

Welcome to the fall issue of KCH E-News!

The 2022-23 academic year is off to a great start. We enrolled 396 first-year and transfer students in August, and added seven tenure-track and specialized professors to our faculty. Although the return of students to campus led to a spike in COVID cases, the University of Illinois’ revolutionary testing program and voluntary masking in classrooms helped us to bring the positivity rate back down. We will, of course, continue to follow best practices to keep our students, faculty, and staff safe throughout the year.

The KCH faculty continues to experience outstanding success in securing external funding for their research, and you’ll read about some of the most recent grants in this newsletter. Our scholars apply their research to the benefit of the community, as you’ll learn when you read about Dr. Laura Rice’s Illini Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic. You’ll also read about graduate students in our professional master’s degree program in health technology, who contribute to community organizations while gaining valuable experience through capstone projects. 

I am so proud to lead this renowned and accomplished group of scholars, earnest and enthusiastic students, and dedicated and hard-working staff who come together to make the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health a truly vibrant and exciting place to be. It gives me great pleasure to report to you that KCH is thriving, thanks in no small part to your continued interest and support!

Kim Graber
Department Head

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Illinois part of team receiving $14.7M grant to study emerging tech for older adults

Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The University of Illinois is part of a consortium that has been awarded a five-year, $14.7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health) for the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE). 

University of Illinois Professor Wendy Rogers—of the Dept. of Kinesiology and Community Health within the College of Applied Health Sciences—is the principal investigator for the Illinois site. Co-investigators include Raksha Mudar of the Dept. of Speech and Hearing Science, Dan Llano of the Dept. of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, and Avinash Gupta and RS Sreenivas, both of the Dept. of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering.  “One of the most exciting aspects of the Illinois engagement is the breadth of our involvement, representing four departments across three colleges,” Dr. Rogers said. “Such interdisciplinarity is critical for advancement in technology designed to support older adults.”  

Weill Cornell Medicine, Florida State University, and Illinois are the lead universities on CREATE, a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary center. The research will focus on employing emerging and existing technologies to promote wellbeing, quality of life and independence for diverse populations of older adults, and to provide support for older adults with cognitive impairments.

Initially funded in 1999, the goal of CREATE is to ensure that older adults can use and realize the benefits of technology for improving daily living. Through the four previous funding cycles of CREATE, the landscape of aging and technology has changed dramatically. 

Given that age is a significant risk factor for cognitive impairments such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s Disease/Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias, CREATE V will expand its target populations to include older adults with MCI and involve three integrated cross-site projects. With a focus on enhancing cognitive health, social engagement and preventing cognitive impairment, the first study will look at how virtual reality technology can be used to foster cognitive and social engagement among aging adults. 

It will be one of the largest randomized controlled trials of virtual reality in home settings. Preliminary development and testing will be conducted at the McKechnie Family LIFE Home on the Illinois campus.

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SPICE-Healthcare: Dietary assessments for culturally diverse older adults

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March 07, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

SPICE-Healthcare is meant to assist the growing population of older adults from culturally diverse backgrounds who are enrolling in long-term care services

A cross-campus team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, led by Kinesiology and Community Health Assistant Professor Mina Raj, has received two grants to test an online platform designed to help dietitians, clinicians and food service personnel make dietary assessments and care plans that are tailored to patients’ medical and cultural needs. 

The web-based platform to Support Personalized and Inclusive Cuisines in Environments for Healthcare (SPICE-Healthcare), is in line to receive nearly $120,000 in grant support to test its usability with community partner ClarkLindsey Village and other healthcare organizations. 

“We will conduct usability testing locally but also with clinicians from other parts of the country,” Raj said. 

Raj focuses her research at the College of Applied Health Sciences on healthcare administration and disparities, particularly on supporting the needs of diverse older adults and family caregivers. Her preliminary studies inform the purpose of SPICE-Healthcare. 

Collaborators include KCH Associate Professor Naiman Khan, an expert in nutrition and health behaviors and outcomes; Margarita Teran-Garcia, assistant dean and program leader of Integrated Health Disparities at Illinois Extension; Ian Brooks, director of Center of Health Informatics; and Lisa Gatzke, who leads the User Interface and User Experience Team at The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). 

“This team has been in conversations for over a year contributing their expertise in nutrition, community outreach, informatics, and design to come up with the platform that aims to improve health service delivery for culturally diverse older adults,” Raj said. “Working together across disciplines has been pivotal to bringing this idea to reality.”
 
To develop and test this electronic-dietary assessment tool (eDA), the team received a $50,000 seed grant from the Personalized Nutrition Initiative, a University of Illinois project led by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, partnered with Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

The Personalized Nutrition Initiative recruits an interdisciplinary group of researchers to investigate ways to optimize human health by making nutrition recommendations based on the individual’s genetics, microbiome and metabolome, along with their dietary history and phenotype. 

Another $68,210 is heading to the project from Illinois Chancellor Robert Jones’ Call to Action Research Program, an annual $2 million commitment that funds research targeting racial inequities and injustices.  

SPICE-Healthcare is meant to assist the growing population of older adults from culturally diverse backgrounds who are enrolling in long-term care services. Many long-term care facilities and hospitals lack inclusive cuisine for different cultural, ethnic and religious identities. 

When food isn’t personalized to these needs and preferences, these older adults face risks of undernourishment, unintentional weight loss, or overburdened family caregivers, investigators say. 

Interviews with institutional leaders at ClarkLindsey and other community organizations suggested that a “point of care” resource to improve culturally tailored nutrition assessments was sorely needed. 

The first phase of the platform, a click-through prototype electronic-dietary assessment, is almost ready for testing, Raj said. 

“We will then continue working with our collaborators at NCSA to refine the tool to be culturally tailored,” she said.

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

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I-Health student ‘fell in love with health technology’

May 02, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Carson Smith says he wants to help people age

Carson Smith

A funny thing happened to Carson Smith on his way to a career as a physician’s assistant. He “fell in love with health technology.”

Smith graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Health in the College of Applied Health Sciences, but notably he came to Illinois as a freshman in the inaugural class for the Students Pursuing Applications, Research and Knowledge (SPARK) program.

You could say SPARK sparked Smith’s interest in a new career.

“When I applied to the university, I was a kinesiology major. But I knew senior year of high school, after I had been admitted, that I wanted to switch to Interdisciplinary Health.

Because I wanted to be a physician’s assistant,” Smith said. “When I was filling out the SPARK application, I said I was interested in health robotics. I thought robots are cool, not really knowing much about it. And then once I got in with the SPARK program and started working in the lab, I realized that I love working in the lab and doing research into assistive technologies.”

Smith said SPARK was a catalyst to get into research.

“It is a little bit difficult for freshmen to get involved in research, especially their first semester, so I knew right away that was going to be a great opportunity for me. I knew I wanted to be involved in research of some sort. It’s always been a goal of mine.”

Smith got a great introduction to research as he was placed into Dr. Wendy Rogers’ Human Factors & Aging Laboratory. Rogers, a Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences, is a renowned researcher in the areas of design for aging, technology acceptance, human-automation interaction, aging-in-place and human-robot interaction, among other areas.

Smith did not know of Rogers’ work, but quickly came to realize he wanted to learn from her.

“Once I got placed in her lab, I did some research and looked at what she was publishing and putting out there. As a freshman, I had no clue what human factors were. And now I want to make a career in working with human factors,” he said. “The SPARK program got my foot in the door.”

Smith so enjoyed working with Rogers that he applied for and was accepted into the Master of Science in Health Technology (MS-HT) program that was spearheaded by Rogers. Smith said working in the Human Factors & Aging Lab helped him “realize there’s a very large need for health technology.”

“I realized that was what I really loved doing, just from really working in the lab,” he said. “It’s going to really prepare me for a successful career in health technology. I’m very interested in assistive tech for older adults, aging in place. If we can keep people out of nursing homes, that’s one of my biggest goals.”

That acknowledgement has led to Smith altering his future plans.

“I have changed what I want to do. I mean, in my life, I have changed it five times. But I think this one’s going to stick. I no longer want to go to physician’s assistant school. I decided last spring, and it was really because I had fallen in love with health technology and looking at things from a human factors perspective.”

Rogers said Smith was a “wonderful addition to our laboratory since he arrived.  Initially he was on multiple projects—everyone wanted Carson on their team because he was so reliable.  He found his niche on our hypertension medication management system team and has been a key player.  It has been a pleasure to watch him learn and grow over the years—I know he will continue to make important contributions in the field of health technology.”

One thing that is clear is that 2022 has been very successful for Smith. In addition to completing his undergrad work and being accepted into the MS-HT program, he also earned a designation of Outstanding for his Undergrad Research Symposium presentation, entitled, ”Development and Iteration of Medication Adherence: Applications for Older Adults.”

Additionally, Smith earned a McKechnie Family Fellowship and this summer, Smith will be working at a human factors in health technology internship in Washington D.C.

Whatever lies ahead for Smith, it is certain it will involve helping people age.

“I have grandparents and great grandparents that always want to be doing things themselves. They don’t want to have to ask other people to do it for them. And just growing up and seeing that, you see that people really do want to be able to take care of themselves, especially as they get older. I think that (explains) a lot of my interest in health technology.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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