Paolo Dainese Second year Master’s student, University of Turin, Italy, 2016

Second year Master’s student, University of Turin, Italy

I come from Turin, Italy, where I’m studying for a Masters’ degree. Part of my Erasmus scholarship was to secure a research internship within another EU country. I wrote to a number of academics in the UK, but the one that really stood out for me was Professor Maria Stokes at the University of Southampton.

My experience at Southampton has been incredibly valuable, particularly in learning about the research process in person. It’s also been great to find out more about the subject that interests me and start formulating some ideas to be able to research FAI further.

My background is in Sports Science and my research is involved with movement dysfunction in footballers with a painful condition of the hip joint, known as femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). I also studied this subject during my degree. When I contacted Professor Maria Stokes at the University of Southampton, and learnt about the University’s research in this area, it just seemed a perfect opportunity.

I have just completed my summer internship programme at the University of Southampton, within the Arthritis Research Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis. Southampton is one of seven universities that work in partnership within the Centre and I have been able to visit the other six universities to see what kind of research they are doing.

My work here has been part of a PhD study by Southampton PhD student Nadine Botha, and supervised by Professor Maria Stokes. Nadine is undertaking a feasibility study of an exercise intervention programme in young footballers.

My contribution to the research was to look at two existing questionnaires: to ascertain their reliability in use with a 15-19 year old age group.

I played football for 14 years and only became aware of FAI when I experienced the condition myself and had to relinquish my ambition of working as a professional footballer. Sport is my life and so my interest in recovery from injury in sport and sport rehabilitation programmes for injuries in an active population has grown with my career progression.

I’m excited about the research here. I was able to volunteer as an individual case study too, and, following this specific exercise programme, has meant that for the first time in five years I am actually feeling some improvement.

My long term plans are to return to the UK to take a Master’s degree in physiotherapy, followed by a PhD, as I have really enjoyed the University experience that Southampton offered.

The Arthritis Research UK Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis is led by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in collaboration with Arthritis Research UK and is a consortium of seven Universities: Nottingham, Oxford, Southampton, Bath, Loughborough, Leeds and UCL.

The Centre's research will lead to plans for prevention, assessment and treatment of injury, aimed at reducing the risk of later osteoarthritis.