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Tag Archives: digital technology

Exciting new NZ-Japan research collaboration

Screenshots from ADOC-E

RTRU has recently received a new funding grant from the Royal Society Te Apārangi to support a brand new research collaboration between occupational therapy researchers from Japan and Māori, Pacific, and Pākehā researchers in New Zealand.  Lead by yours truly (William Levack), this project involves the development and testing of a) an English-language version and b) a Māori/Pacific version of a Japanese iPad application called the “Aid for Decision-Making in Occupational Choice” (ADOC).

ADOC is designed to help health professionals engage with patients (adults and children) and their family/whānau in collaborative goal setting for rehabilitation (e.g. for people with stroke, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, or dementia). Despite the importance of goal setting in rehabilitation, past research has demonstrated that involving patients in goal setting can be difficult, with health professionals tending to dominate discussions around the selection of goals, and issues such as communication and cognitive impairments creating obstacles to robust patient involvement. This project will provide the ground work required for future research investigating the use of digital technology as a tool to support rehabilitation professionals to be more culturally responsive and person-centred in their clinical practice – improving the quality of their service delivery and increasing opportunities for more meaningful health outcomes for their patients.

My research collaborators for this project are Bernadette Jones (Ngāti Apa Ngā Wairiki), Dr Tristram Ingram (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, Ngāti Porou), Dr Dianne Sika-Paotonu, A/Prof Rebecca Grainger (from University of Otago), A/Prof Kounosuke Tomori and Dr Tatsunori Sawade (from Tokyo University of Technology), and A/Prof Kayoko Takahashi (from Kitasato University).  Funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi will support travel between New Zealand and Japan to help us successfully complete this work.  Additional funding support for our various collaborative projects over the next two years has also be provided by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and by a University of Otago Research Grant.