Professor Alison Hammond

School of Health and Society

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Contact Details

Allerton L701

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Current positions

Professor in Rheumatology Rehabilitation

BIOGRAPHY

Alison Hammond is an occupational therapist,  a Fellow of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and a Fellow of the British Health Professionals in Rheumatology. She completed her PhD in the Psychology department at the University of Nottingham in 1994. This focused on self-management education and health psychology in Rheumatology.

Alison is a leading international Rheumatology Rehabilitation researcher. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is co-editor of “Rheumatology: Evidence based Practice for Physiotherapists & Occupational Therapists” (2010, Elsevier).  She has contributed to writing self-help books and information booklets for people with arthritisHer research includes clinical trials, surveys, outcome measurement development and qualitative research. Her trials include Rheumatology occupational therapy, patient education, joint protection, orthoses, fatigue management and work rehabilitation.

Alison has contributed to national and international guidelines and standards of care in Rheumatology, including the NICE Guidelines for the Management of Adults with Rheumatoid Arthritis and EULAR Guidelines for non-pharmacological management of osteoarthritis and for Rheumatology Nursing.

Areas of research

Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, Work Rehabilitation, Self-Management/ Patient Education, Outcome Measures, Upper Limb Therapy

Teaching

Alison supervises research by PhD and MPhil. She is also a Visiting Lecturer teaching  Rheumatology rehabilitation and patient education at the University of Keele, King’s College London and Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in Switzerland.

Research Interests

Alison uses a mixed methods approach to:

  • Develop new and evaluate current  outcome measures; explore their use in clinical practice
  • understand people with arthritis’ problems from  their perspective
  • develop, evaluate and implement novel interventions, and evaluate current interventions, particularly in Rheumatology occupational therapy and in self-management education
  • disseminate research findings and deliver evidence-based training and education to Rheumatology health professionals

Projects include:

WORKWELL: development and evaluation of a Work retention programme for employed people with Inflammatory Arthritis: a randomised controlled feasibility trial; survey of Rheumatology OT provision; qualitative studies; and a definitive randomised controlled trial (currently in progress).

LMAP: evaluation of a self-management programme, the Lifestyle Management for Arthritis Programme: long term follow up of a randomised controlled trial; observational and qualitative studies.

R-PROMs: Rheumatology Patient Reported Outcome Measures for OT. Developing and evaluating activity of daily living (English, Dutch and German EDAQ), participation (VLAS), hand function (MAP-HAND) and work outcome measures in 8 musculoskeletal conditions. Disseminating measures into practice.

OCC-IMPACT: exploring the Occupational performance Impact of 8 musculoskeletal conditions.

HOOT: Hand Orthoses in rheumatology OT: surveys of OT provision, systematic review and trials.

A-GLOVES: a definitive randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of arthritis gloves in rheumatoid arthritis.

SMART: Self-Management in Arthritis. A programme of studies investigating self-management information needs; evaluating and disseminating the Looking After Your Joints Programme in inflammatory arthritis and hand OA (SMOOTH trial); qualitative studies, collaboration in fatigue management (RAFT trial).    

We work collaboratively  with researchers at the Universities of: Manchester, Lancaster, Nottingham, Southampton,  West of England, Cardiff, Keele; Leiden University Medical Centre (the Netherlands); ZHAW -Zurich, Switzerland; ICF Network, Swiss Paraplegic Research, Switzerland; Institute of Rheumatology, Prague;   University of Linkoping, Sweden; Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich, Germany;  Ankara University, Turkey;  Universities of Boston (USA), British Columbia and Ontario (Toronto) (Canada).

Qualifications and Memberships

Qualifications

  • PhD Psychology, University of Nottingham,
  • MSc Rehabilitation Sciences (distinction) University of Southampton
  • BSc(Hons) University of East Anglia
  • DipCOT, Liverpool School of OT

Memberships

  • Fellow of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists
  • Fellow of the British Health Professionals in Rheumatology
  • Arthritis Research UK Silver Medal for Rheumatology Occupational Therapy
  • Member: National Institutes of Health Research Clinical Lecturer/ SCL Review Panel
  • Associate Editor, Musculoskeletal Care
  • Advisory Board member, Clinical Rehabilitation
  • Alison previous committee memberships include: British Health Professionals in Rheumatology, College of Occupational Therapy Specialist Section Rheumatology (COTSS-R), EULAR Health Professional Standing Committee, Scientific Committee and Education Committee, COT Council and Chair of the COT R&D Board; Arthritis Research UK Inflammatory Arthritis CSG