01 June 2010
Propeller Multimedia Ltd Secures Collaborative PhD Programme

Propeller Multimedia Ltd based in Cavalry Park Business Centre, Peebles is a leading producer and distributor of speech and language therapy software. Their clients include private individuals, schools, speech therapy clinics and stroke clubs throughout the UK and many other English speaking countries. Their main software product developed by the company is React2 a brand new suite of speech and language therapy software that is breaking new ground in computer aided therapy. Since React1 was launched in 1998 it has been a leading product for speech and language rehabilitation, sold to therapists and private individuals throughout most English speaking countries. However, the program has now been completely re-written and updated, which makes React2 a huge step forward. React2 combines the development skills of a team of speech and language therapists from NHS Borders, Scotland, with input from specialists in the UK and around the world.

Working with Dr Siobhán Jordan from the Interface and Knowledge Links team the company have recently been successful in securing a collaborative PhD programme that will commence in October 2010. Although it has been shown that intensive speech therapy improves long term outcomes in aphasic stoke patients, little is known neither about the brain mechanisms underlying long term recovery/improvement nor about which therapy has to be used. This projects aims at investigating the long term mechanisms underlying recovery/improvement in stroke using computer assisted home therapy. This project involves interacting between the academic team based at the Brain Imaging Research Canter, Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh working on patient imaging and recovery and the team at Propeller Multimedia Ltd specialized in computer assisted therapy.

During the period of the PhD, the student will compare patients receiving or not receiving additional speech therapy. They will i) investigate the behavioural and neural correlates of home speech therapy using functional magnetic resonance imaging, ii) enquire the neural substrate underlying learning vs. cortical plasticity (control participants vs. patients), and iii) establish long term benefits of computer assisted home speech therapy.

This studentship is part of the Novel and Collaborative Approaches to Knowledge Exchange in Translational Imaging grant funding from Scottish Funding Council to SINPASE, the medical imaging pool drawing on the combined expertise of six Scottish universities.

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