Julie Bernhardt Explained

Julie Bernhardt is an Australian physiotherapist and clinician scientist, known for her work in the field of stroke recovery. She has been a principal research fellow and an NHMRC senior research fellow and clinical head of the Stroke Division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne.

Bernhardt is the director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Stroke Rehabilitation and Brain Repair, a collaboration between the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the Hunter Medical Research Institute and other institutions.[1] She founded and chaired the international Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable (SRRR), a partnership involving leading stroke experts which aims to advance stroke rehabilitation research.[2] She led the second SRRR in 2018, on developing international clinical trials to improve stroke treatment.[3]

Early life and education

In 1985, Bernhardt completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in Physiotherapy at the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences in Melbourne.[4]

From 1990 to 1995 she undertook a Masters of Applied Science at La Trobe University, Melbourne, where she also received her PhD in 1999. The focus of her PhD research was on the hemiplegic upper limb, and she developed new methods of testing the accuracy of observational kinematic assessment of upper limb dysfunction.[5] [6] [7]

Career

Bernhardt began work as a physiotherapy research coordinator at Melbourne Health in 1989,[8] then after completing her PhD, she was a senior physiotherapist at the Austin and Royal Melbourne Hospitals from 1999–2008.

She became a professor in neuroscience at La Trobe in 2006. Bernhardt is head of Stroke Division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne.

AVERT

In 2004, Bernhardt joined the Florey Institute to become Principal Investigator of the AVERT Early Intervention Research Group. AVERT was the largest acute stroke rehabilitation trial in the world. Over 2000 stroke patients were recruited from 56 acute stroke units in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Singapore from 2006–2014.[9] Within the AVERT group, Bernhardt led a team of over 1000 clinicians and researchers. The trial aimed to identify if receiving very early mobilisation (VEM) within 24 hours of stroke is beneficial for stroke recovery, and if so, how much and what frequency is best.[10] The studies in AVERT focused on understanding how these early exercise-based interventions after stroke may alter bone, muscle and brain.[11] The results of AVERT were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference in Glasgow in April 2015. While AVERT was completed in 2016, Bernhardt continued to lead the extension of the trial, AVERT-DOSE (Determining Optimal early rehabilitation after Stroke).[12] This trial tests eight different mobility training regimens to see what dose of mobility training is best early after stroke. AVERT-DOSE is recruiting over 2500 patients in six countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, and India.[12]

Boards and other activities

From 2006 to 2014, Bernhardt was a non-executive director for the National Stroke Foundation. She has been on the Steering Committee of the Australian Stroke Research Network since 2011 and from 2013–16, she was co-chair for Australasian Stroke Trials Network.

In 2015, Bernhardt became a director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Stroke Rehabilitation, which aims to accelerate discovery and translation in the field of stroke rehabilitation[13] She was chair of the research committee for the World Federation of Neurorehabilitation from 2016 to 2020. Bernhardt has been on the board of the World Stroke Organisation since July 2014 and Chair of the research committee of WSO since April 2017.

She also founded and leads the Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable, which brings together researchers, clinicians, funders and consumers to identify key stroke research priority areas.

Advocacy

In 2013, Bernhardt founded the Women in Science Parkville Precinct (WiSPP) Collective Impact initiative to address the gender inequity that she had witnessed in medical research.[14] This initiative aims to improve the systems that limit the advancement of women and diversity of leadership across five of Melbourne's medical research institutes. Bernhardt was invited to talk at the 2016 World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China about gender equity[15] and is also an author on a paper about gender equity in Stroke Society of Australasia.[16]

Awards and honours

Publications

Bernhardt has published 345 scholarly works, most in the field of stroke rehabilitation.[26]

Personal life

Bernhardt lived in Melbourne with her husband and teenage son.[27]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Our People . Stroke Recovery Research CRE . 12 September 2018.
  2. Bernhardt . Julie . Hayward . Kathryn . Kwakkel . Gert . Ward . Nick . Wolf . Steven . Borschmann . Karen . Krakauer . John . Boyd . Lara . Carmichael . S. Thomas . Corbett . Dale . Cramer . Steven . Agreed Definitions and a Shared Vision for New Standards in Stroke Recovery Research: The Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable Taskforce . Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair . September 21, 2017 . 31 . 9 . 793–799 . 10.1177/1545968317732668 . 28934920 . free .
  3. Web site: Borschmann . Karen . Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Roundtable – June 2018 update . Stroke Recovery Research CRE . 13 September 2018.
  4. Web site: ORCID . 2022-04-09 . orcid.org.
  5. Book: Bernhardt, J. A. . Observational kinematic assessment of upper limb movement . Doctoral dissertation, La Trobe University . 1998.
  6. Bernhardt . Julie . Bate . Patricia J . Matyas . Thomas A . 1998-03-01 . Accuracy of Observational Kinematic Assessment of Upper-Limb Movements . Physical Therapy . 78 . 3 . 259–270 . 10.1093/ptj/78.3.259 . 9520971 . 0031-9023. free .
  7. Bernhardt . Julie . Ellis . Paul . Denisenko . Sonia . Hill . Keith . 1998 . Changes in balance and locomotion measures during rehabilitation following stroke . Physiotherapy Research International . en . 3 . 2 . 109–122 . 10.1002/pri.130 . 9648176 . 1358-2267.
  8. Web site: Neurosciences Centre of Research Excellence: Staff . Neurosciences Centre of Research Excellence . 6 November 2014.
  9. Web site: A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial (AVERT) - Database Projects . Florey . 19 September 2018.
  10. Bernhardt . Julie . Churilov . Leonid . Ellery . Fiona . Collier . Janice . Chamberlain . Jan . Langhorne . Peter . Lindley . Richard . Moodie . Marj . Dewey . Helen . Thrift . Amanda . Donnan . Geoff . June 7, 2016 . Prespecified dose-response analysis for A Very Early Rehabilitation Trial (AVERT) . Neurology . 23 . 86 . 2138–2145 . 10.1212/WNL.0000000000002459 . 4898313 . 26888985.
  11. Web site: Julie Bernhardt . dead . LinkedIn . 6 November 2014 . https://archive.today/20141106043413/http://au.linkedin.com/pub/julie-bernhardt/88/9a0/8a0 . 6 November 2014.
  12. Web site: AVERT-DOSE (Determining Optimal early rehabilitation after StrokE): A multi-arm covariate-adjusted, response-adaptive randomised controlled trial . Research Data Australia . 19 September 2018.
  13. Web site: Our Research . Stroke Recovery Research CRE . 12 September 2018.
  14. Web site: Team 1 . 2022-04-10 . WiSPP . en-US.
  15. Web site: Australia Day Honour for Professor Julie Bernhardt . 26 January 2019 . 10 April 2022.
  16. Carcel . Cheryl . Woodward . Mark . Anderson . Craig S. . Delcourt . Candice . Bernhardt . Julie . Gall . Seana . 2022 . Gender Equity in Leadership and Conferences of the Stroke Society of Australasia . Cerebrovascular Diseases . english . 51 . 1 . 125–130 . 10.1159/000517453 . 1015-9770 . 34265764. 235959393 . free . 1959.4/unsworks_77957 . free .
  17. Web site: Bernhardt, Julie's Fellowship Profile . Winston Churchill Memorial Trust . 13 September 2018.
  18. Web site: 100 Women of Influence 2016 . afr.com . 15 October 2015 . 13 September 2018.
  19. Web site: Awards supported by the Austin Medical Research Foundation, AMRF, Melbourne Australia . Austin Medical Research Foundation . 13 September 2018.
  20. Web site: American Stroke Association honors nine outstanding contributors to stroke, research . American Heart Association . 13 September 2018.
  21. News: Our 2016 CEW Scholars - Chief Executive Women . en-US . Chief Executive Women . 2022-04-07.
  22. Web site: UKSF Conference 2015 - At A Glance Programme . Stroke Association . 13 September 2018.
  23. Web site: Winners announced: NAB Womens Agenda Leadership Awards 2015 . Angela Priestley.
  24. Web site: Australia Day 2019 Honours List . Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia . 30 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190527060553/https://www.gg.gov.au/australia-day-2019-honours-list . 27 May 2019 . dead .
  25. Web site: 2020-10-14. Academy elects 28 new Fellows. 2020-12-07. AAHMS - Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. en-AU.
  26. Web site: Prof Julie Bernhardt . 2022-04-10 . findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au.
  27. Web site: Life as a scientist can mean directly helping those who suffer. 6 May 2014. 6 November 2014. Women's Agenda.