Research and Development

At the University of Bolton, we are a ‘Teaching Intensive, Research Informed’ (TIRI) University, and have a student body of approximately 12,000. We ensure that all our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes benefit from the latest research. Our students will study in an environment which reflects as closely as possible the work environment in which they are likely to enter.

The Sport & Physical Activity Rehabilitation Centre (SPARC) is constantly evolving and benefits from the latest research and developments in new treatments. Our aim is to benefit our clients and give our students the widest range of practical experience to prepare them for their chosen career. We will continue to work with a range of partner organisations and invest in new innovative methods and equipment to achieve this.

Research is a very important part of our strategy and we continue to work with many different partnership organisations and community groups on a range of projects.

Research Interests and Profile

Our Physiotherapy and Sport Rehabilitation teams have a range of research Interests and are currently working in the following areas:

Children and Young People:

- Use of sport within physiotherapy for children and young people with disabilities.
- Physiotherapeutic intervention for children & young people with long term disabilities.
- Aquatic physiotherapy on physical activity for children and young people with disabilities.

Elderly and Older People:

- Prevention of Falls in elderly and Rehabilitation.
- Balance and falls prevention.
- Motor control.

Women’s Health:

- Female Athlete Populations
- Women’s Health studies

Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation:

- Acupuncture
- Occlusion Training for Rehabilitation.
- Inverted Ankle Injurie and the effect of exercise and muscular stretching prior to exercise to help reduce possible injury.
- Injury Risk Assessment in Sport.
- Post-activation potentiation (PAP) for performance enhancement and injury prevention.
- Injury Prevention Strategies; Physiological and Neuromuscular Screening Tools sensitive to monitoring load and fatigue in elite athletes.
- Physiological Adaptations to Extreme Environments.

Amputees:

- Amputee Rehabilitation Research and including various Case Studies.
- Mental Health and Prosthetics.

Conditions and Illnesses:

- Assessment and management of spinal conditions.
- Brain injury.
- Cancer Rehabilitation.
- Diabetes Research and the positive effect of exercise.
- Osteoarthritis, Pain, Feasibility studies and Randomised Controlled Trials.
- Physical activity in people living with long-term neurological conditions.
- Spinal Conditions.

Fitness Testing:

- Strength and Conditioning
- Systematic Reviews and Network Meta-analysis
- Validity and Reliability of Physiological Testing.
- Hot & Cold Therapy Testing Research
- Exploring the role of whole-body dynamic stability movement strategies in the execution of dynamic tasks.
- Utilisation of induced acceleration modelling and analysis methods to explain control of the centre of mass related to change of direction performance and common lower limb injury markers.
- Providing evidence-based intervention strategies and investigating practice-based research questions in the strength and conditioning field, particularly from a biomechanical perspective.

Sport Psychology:

- Development of Applied Sport Psychology Practitioners.
- Exploring the Reflective Accounts of Applied Sport Psychology Practitioners.
- The effect of athletes preparing for Tokyo 2021 Olympics during COVID-19 Virus restrictions.
- Sport Psychologist Training and Development.
- The use of video-analysis feedback within professional football
- Providing one-to-one support with a professional rugby league player – Case Study.
- Pressure to provide a solution: One-to-one support with an elite junior gymnast – Case Study.

Recent Research Projects

Diabetes Research Project

This project was funded by Diabetes UK and worked with seven local schools to carry out a range of health and fitness testing to research the risk of young people developing diabetes through their current lifestyle and what interventions could be made to improve this situation.

Hot & Cold Therapy Testing Research

This research project carried out testing with both hot and cold therapy treatments on a range of different sports injuries. This study included notice and elite athletes.

Amputee Rehabilitation Research

This is a new area of research which we are looking to develop. We have been involved with small case studies, but we are currently looking for funding and partner organisations to develop this area further.