The Canadian Network for Rehabilitation and Exercise for Solid Organ Transplant Optimal Recovery (CAN-RESTORE) co-chaired by Dr. Tania Janaudis-Ferreira, Assistant Professor at McGill University’s School of Physical and Occupational Therapy (SPOT), is celebrating its fifth year of activity in 2018.
The CAN-RESTORE team strives towards the mission of achieving optimal well-being in transplant patients through exercise and rehabilitation, focusing their activities on research, dissemination and partnerships. Over the past five years, together the network has amassed over $600,000 in research funding through national, provincial, and local grants to conduct studies focused on exercise and physical activity in transplantation.
When the network was founded, one of the goals was to explore and advocate for funding opportunities in physical rehabilitation in transplantation. Dr. Janaudis-Ferreira, who herself has been successful in bringing in both national and provincial grants to SPOT, says that she is, “extremely proud of the CAN-RESTORE’s accomplishments, as research funds in this field have been traditionally focused on studies related to the advances in surgery and immunology.” Over the past five years their funded research has already resulted in 16 peer-reviewed publications.With value placed on dissemination of research results, the team has delivered over 50 knowledge translation activities, ranging from conference presentations, to patient and healthcare professional education workshops. To date, more than 280 healthcare professionals and 150 patients across Canada have attended these educational activities. “These presentations provide a unique opportunity for healthcare professionals to increase their knowledge and the ability to apply the evidence in their practice, and for patients to increase their knowledge on how to exercise and advocate for improved access to rehabilitation” explains Dr. Janaudis-Ferreira.
The network also works to train the next generation of researchers, with network co-chairs actively supervising 25 MSc and PhD students, as well as undergraduate trainees in transplant rehabilitation. Dr. Janaudis-Ferreira states that “training students is important because they will keep moving this research field forward and hopefully, as healthcare professionals, become advocates for better rehabilitation services for transplant patients in Canada.” At McGill, she currently has two graduate students and a group of first-year physiotherapy masters students working on projects related to rehabilitation and transplantation. These projects aim to build new partnerships with the transplant programs at the McGill University Health Centre and the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, as well as with community and fitness centres in Montreal.
In the coming years, Dr. Janaudis-Ferreira’s goal is to continue to build her research program at SPOT, as well as to finalize the position statement on exercise in transplant candidates and recipients that she is currently developing in partnership with the Canadian Society of Transplantation, the Canadian National Transplant Research Program, Dr. Sunita Mathur from the University of Toronto and other members of the CAN-RESTORE network.
The CAN-RESTORE network will also focus on building new partnerships with community centres in Montreal and with the Canadian and World Transplant Games to explore opportunities to offer effective and acceptable exercise programs for transplant candidates and recipients in Canada and from around the world.
For more information about the Can-Restore Network, visit: https://www.cntrp.ca/canrestore-exercise-rehabilitation
June 19, 2018