I have had the pleasure of working at the ‘Diving Diseases Research Centre’ for more than 9 years.

One of the things that I have been involved in numerous times over that period is staffing the stand at the national dive shows. DDRC’s introduction to the world reads ‘DDRC - Is a charity providing support and education for divers and research into the effects of altered pressure environments on humans. It is one of the UK’s busiest recompression facility, and has seen over fifty diving casualties in the past 12 months. DDRC is able to offer internationally recognised training from diving first aid and oxygen administration to hyperbaric medicine and recompression chamber operation. We will have a team (including me) of helpful and informative staff onsite at the dive show to answer any questions you may have about training, research or the work we do.’

On the day we will have some interesting bits of research for you to get involved in.  Graham Samson will be introducing some of his research, which is going towards a PhD.

I’ll be asking people to judge wither they think a number of factors might cause decompression illness.  It is a simple card sorting task with no hard and fast right or wrong responses just subjective judgements.  If you have the chance to visit us at the NEC that would be great.  If you can’t make it then I know all the researchers at DDRC would love your input, and I know I would appreciate you completing my online survey.

See you on the 1st or 2nd of November at the NEC or please complete my online survey!

(Opens new window and takes you to SurveyGizmo)

(Disclosure: this post relates to my work with Knowledge West, it also doesn’t have that much to do with technology, start-ups etc)

One of the great aspects of my life is working with very cool companies that are doing very cool things and making very cool products. Unfortunately most of my work is around developing their business or helping with innovation so not easily shared.

Last Friday I got a chance to research some of the cool products that a company we’re working with make (ok it was mostly fun). Flexifoil are one of the top power kite manufacturer in the world for quality and performance. The University of the West of England are going to be working with them to get even better.

Easy does it

This was mostly fun, though the difference between even a 2.5m Blurr kite and the traditional diamond with a tail of string and cloth off-cuts was staggering. The morning on Weston-super-Mare’s uphill beach was almost perfect for learning. As you can see from the photo on the right, we actually had sun! The breeze was a bit light but it gave us the chance to play without getting dragged all over the beach if we messed up.

There was plenty of messing up! These are performance kites and they’d started us on the ‘Traction’ range, which even in those light winds was enough to pull you off balance. Getting the hang of the four control lines (2 power and 2 brake) and figuring out where the ’sweet spot’ was while not getting blinded by the sun was a real challenge that everyone pretty much got the hang of by lunch time.

Getting dragged around WSM

Around lunch time it began to cloud over and the wind picked up. I tried out a different kite, a 4m Blade IV. Slightly bigger, more powerful and a bit trickier to handle. The dark line behind me are the gouge marks where I was literally being lifted off the sand and unceremoniously dragged along until I could de-power. The kite is just off camera almost vertically above me.

After lunch we broke out the 3-wheeled buggys and had to learn all about tacking & gybing (which is fine for me) with a ’sail’ that moves around your body like a windsurf sail (ok, still mostly fine) and moves vertically from brushing the sand to overhead (that bit was harder to get a handle on). Fortunately for me, Sy had shown up and gave me a crash course which got me hurtling up and down the beach in no time. Mostly under control.

Hanging in there

Whilst we were getting the hang of it Flexifoil’s tame pro-boarder pitched up and began playing. The guy was officially bonkers. He’s actually flying one of the big surf kites, an Aaron Hadlow Pro (at least 7m across). After another couple hours of kite flying it started raining, so he switched into his wetsuit and started tearing up the seafront.

Hanging in there

A fantastic day with some amazing kit,thanks go to Stephen Batty and the team at RBI for organising. Now if I can just find a spare £1,000 for the gear, some spare weekends, maybe a van…

Image by Sarge-Jack

Sometimes you can be working on projects for years and you can feel that no substantial outputs are ever going to come from them. Then all of a sudden stuff happens! Sometimes the stuff is further funding, sometimes it is conference abstracts, posters or oral presentations and sometimes you get publications. That is the case here; projects I have been involved with since 2001 have finally got to the point that academic peer review journals are accepting articles for publication.

I have had the good fortune to have four articles accepted so far this year. I have written about the first three and the abstracts can be read in earlier blogs (1 - QoL & Maxillofacial Cancer Patients: 2 - Educational Impact of Pulmonary Rehabilitation: 3 - Personality as a predisposing factor for DCI) on this site and references found on the research page.

The latest article (No. 4) has been accepted for publication in the ‘Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention’ is and entitled:

The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in patients undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation and changes in PTSD symptoms following rehabilitation

Authors: Jones, RCM., Harding, SA., Chung, M., & Campbell, J.

Abstract: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a common serious condition which, although treatable, is often undetected. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of PTSD in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) referred to pulmonary rehabilitation and the impact of rehabilitation on PTSD symptoms. Design: cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys. Participants: Patients with COPD attending pulmonary rehabilitation programmes in South West England. Outcome measures:The Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS), Impact of Events scale (IES-R), the incremental shuttle walking test, Medical Outcomes Short Form 12 (SF-12), Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ-SR). Questionnaires were completed at face to face interviews with participants one week prior to commencing pulmonary rehabilitation and at the end of the programme. 100 participants took part, mean age 68yrs; 65 male. 70% completed the pulmonary rehabilitation programme. Seventy four out of one hundred participants reported traumatic experiences, 37 of which were related to their lung disease. Eight out of 100 participants met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Participants with PTSD reported worse health status than those without PTSD. After pulmonary rehabilitation, exercise capacity and quality of life scores improved significantly, but PTSD symptom severity did not change. PTSD was present in 8% of COPD patients referred for pulmonary rehabilitation. After rehabilitation, participants with PTSD improved more in respect of anxiety and disease specific health status than those without PTSD. PTSD symptoms did not improve following rehabilitation, despite its positive effects on HADS scores, exercise and health status in this cohort.

Once again I hope you find this of interest and as always please get in touch if you want to discuss or comment about anything in the article.

Image by Sarge-Jack

Sometimes you can be working on projects for years and you can feel that no substantial outputs are ever going to come from them. Then all of a sudden stuff happens! Sometimes the stuff is further funding, sometimes it is conference abstracts, posters or oral presentations and sometimes you get publications. That is the case here; projects I have been involved with since 2001 have finally got to the point that academic peer review journals are accepting articles for publication.

I have had the good fortune to have four articles accepted so far this year. I have written about the first three and the abstracts can be read in earlier blogs (1 - QoL & Maxillofacial Cancer Patients: 2 - Educational Impact of Pulmonary Rehabilitation: 3 - Personality as a predisposing factor for DCI) on this site and references found on the research page.

The latest article (No. 4) has been accepted for publication in the ‘Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention’ is and entitled:

The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in patients undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation and changes in PTSD symptoms following rehabilitation

Authors: Jones, RCM., Harding, SA., Chung, M., & Campbell, J.

Abstract: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a common serious condition which, although treatable, is often undetected. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of PTSD in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) referred to pulmonary rehabilitation and the impact of rehabilitation on PTSD symptoms. Design: cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys. Participants: Patients with COPD attending pulmonary rehabilitation programmes in South West England. Outcome measures:The Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS), Impact of Events scale (IES-R), the incremental shuttle walking test, Medical Outcomes Short Form 12 (SF-12), Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ-SR). Questionnaires were completed at face to face interviews with participants one week prior to commencing pulmonary rehabilitation and at the end of the programme. 100 participants took part, mean age 68yrs; 65 male. 70% completed the pulmonary rehabilitation programme. Seventy four out of one hundred participants reported traumatic experiences, 37 of which were related to their lung disease. Eight out of 100 participants met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Participants with PTSD reported worse health status than those without PTSD. After pulmonary rehabilitation, exercise capacity and quality of life scores improved significantly, but PTSD symptom severity did not change. PTSD was present in 8% of COPD patients referred for pulmonary rehabilitation. After rehabilitation, participants with PTSD improved more in respect of anxiety and disease specific health status than those without PTSD. PTSD symptoms did not improve following rehabilitation, despite its positive effects on HADS scores, exercise and health status in this cohort.

Once again I hope you find this of interest and as always please get in touch if you want to discuss or comment about anything in the article.

Uploaded on May 12, 2006 by JosephH

Another great Open Coffee despite the weather’s attempts to keep folk away. After gathering downstairs with our chosen caffeine drinks, a number of discussions quickly established.

Nigel Legg came along and we discussed the analysis of those pesky free text boxes on customer surveys. The rest of the form is automated but the free text stuff needs to be transcribed, coded and then analysed using specialist software. But the benefit from those short bursts of direct feedback from customers and clients can be critical, and that’s what Nigel provides. He’s managing a team across the UK and beyond and providing his service to the market research companies as an added value proposition.

Janice Gjertsen Caillet (Founder & CEO, Coaching Circles) also joined us for the first time to find out what happening and interesting in Bristol. As a relatively new citizen to Bristol (after 10 yrs in New York and then 4 in Paris) she’s brought her executive coaching and business mentoring company with her. Lots of great ideas about shaking up the scene and competing on the global stage.

Andy and I also had a bit of a chat about business development and financing growth in the current financial climate. As the Bristol Enterprise Network event tomorrow night will explore, there are growth opportunities in a recession, but its hard(er) work. Having been through the last dotcom boom Andy knows his stuff so it’s reassuring to hear him planning for growth, even though he does touch wood every time he mentions it. I’m hanging on to my desk as I write this.

Peter Livingston from Clarke Willmott joined us towards the end of the discussion with some thoughts on IP and the value of a good legal brief in tough times. Although neither Andy or I have retained legal counsel there is definite value in the particular focus and discipline that a lawyer’s training brings to business analysis and process refinement. This is probably especially true in a creative business where the ‘normal’ business practice is less logical and articulated and more spontaneous and freeform. Great for creativity and innovation, trickier for compliance and contract management.

All in all another good morning, and apologies to those I only got to say hi to briefly.