August 14, 2013

Han Chen, MD, MPH, a PhD candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences Department at Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions, was awarded the Young Investigator Award at the World Congress of the International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ISPRM), held in Beijing, China in June.

The Mission of ISPRM is to improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes of clinicians, to improve the quality of life of people with health conditions, and to provide a mechanism to facilitate rehabilitation medicine input into international organizations, with special emphasis on those dedicated to the physical therapy and rehabilitation field.

“I think this award proves that the faculty in Drexel’s PhD program in Rehabilitation Sciences educate students at the international level. This program is preparing high quality researchers in the rehabilitation field,” Chen said.

Chen presented two of her abstracts, one as a Platform Presentation and the other as a Poster Presentation, at ISPRM 2013. The abstracts were titled “Clinical change threshold and diagnostic validity of the University of Illinois at Chicago Fear of Falling Measure to identify fallers in community-dwelling older adults in the US and China” and “Improved fall prediction for community-dwelling older adults: combining the University of Illinois at Chicago Fear of Falling Measure with the Berg Balance Scale.” There were more than 200 world-renowned speakers and over 4,000 participants attending the international congress. Chen attended the conference with her research advisors Susan Smith, PhD, and Jan Meiers, DPT. One of the co-authors, Elizabeth Wang-Hsu was absent from this congress because of her research project schedule.   

“I'd like to thank my research mentor Susan Smith and our team members Jan Meiers and Elizabeth Wang-Hsu. Thanks to everybody's contribution, we get this award,” Chen said.