Alison Aries

Biography

Having qualified from Wolverhampton School of Physiotherapy in 1986 I worked within the NHS for over 25 years, finally leaving my last permanent NHS post in September 2012. Gaining a broad background of experience, I successfully undertook senior posts in many different specialities, including two years in general medicine / elderly care, six years within the field of surgery / ITU and three years in neurology, prior to moving into the community to work, specialising in stroke.  Within my role as a senior physiotherapist within the Community Intermediate Care Team I developed specialist skills in neurological rehabilitation, managed a clinical team, and I also played a key role in the development of the Stroke Early Supported Discharge (ESD) service in Wolverhampton.  

I have worked as a lecturer within the School of Health and Rehabilitation since 2003. I successfully achieved a prestigious NIHR Clinical Academic Doctoral fellowship (which was completed between April 2015 and March 2018). This involved successfully developing standardised protocols and then setting up and running a mixed-methods, randomized, blinded feasibility study exploring sensory stimulation to the foot post-stroke. I am now planning on becoming a Clinical Academic, helping to facilitate research within clinical practice.

Research and scholarship

My research interests lie predominantly in neurology, in particular neuroplasticity and rehabilitation of stroke patients. 

As part of a prestigious NIHR Clinical Academic Doctoral fellowship (completed between April 2015 and March 2018) I successfully developed standardised protocols and then set up and ran a mixed-methods, randomized, blinded feasibility study exploring sensory stimulation to the foot post-stroke. Details of this study can be found at the following link

This three-year fellowship also enabled further development of my clinical and leadership skills and opportunities to build international collaborations. In preparation for the fellowship I also worked as a blinded assessor for the FAST INdiCATE trial: “Clinical efficacy of functional strength training for upper limb motor recovery early after stroke: neural correlates and prognostic indicators”. This multi-centre, randomised, controlled, observer blind trial was funded by the NIHR/MRC Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) programme, and was sponsored by University of East Anglia, Norwich.

Teaching

I completed the MSc Neuromusculoskeletal Healthcare at Keele in May 2003; in July 2003 I commenced work part-time as a lecturer within the School of Health and Rehabilitation (SHAR) at Keele University whilst continuing to work as a part-time senior physiotherapist until September 2012.

As a lecturer at Keele I have many years of experience teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, mainly within the field of neurology. I have successfully undertaken many roles and responsibilities within SHAR: Programme Lead for the MSc Neurological Rehabilitation; Year Head; Disability Liaison Officer; Deputy Academic Conduct Officer; SHAR representative for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences User and Carer Liaison Group; member of the admissions team; and module leader at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.