Research interests
Research Interests
Falls events caused by Parkinson’s disease and other risk factors
PhD Research
Falling is a major aspect of health and wellbeing, can result in injuries and fractures, and is a precursor of loss of independence in the elderly and the move to institutional care. Postural instability, which is a common clinical manifestation of Parkinson's disease, leading to frequent falls, significantly reduces the quality of life for the patients.
Traditional analysis examines the proportion of people who fall in a stated period of time in a logistic regression model. Over the last fifteen years, negative binomial models are becoming increasingly popular for the count data. Unlike a Poisson model, a negative binomial model includes random subject effects and producing relative rates of falling. Typically people might report falling zero, once or perhaps two times a year, but some people in these patient groups at high risk of falling report very large numbers of falls, maybe over 1000 a year. The over-dispersed data may fit a negative binomial model better than a Poisson model. This study aims to show the risk factors related to the occurrence of falling, and the methods for preventing.
PhD title: ‘Negative binomial models for falls data in Parkinson’s disease and other groups at high risk of falling.’
Supervisors: Dr Ruth Pickering (Medical Statistics Group), Dr Alan Kimber (Mathematics), Dr Emma Stack (Faculty of Medicine).
Research group
Primary Care & Population Sciences
Mr Han (Alex) ZhengPrimary Care and Population Sciences Faculty of Medicine University of Southampton Southampton General Hospital Level C South Academic Block Tremona Road Southampton SO16 6YD
