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 and Medical Education
Mr Han (Alex) ZhengPrimary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education
Faculty of Medicine
University of Southampton
Southampton General Hospital
Level C, South Academic Block
Tremona Road
Southampton SO16 6YD
Tel 023 8120 6350
