Waikato Graduate Researches Maori Incidence Of Stroke

16 April 2012

Waikato Graduate Researches High Incidence Of Stroke Among Māori

The high incidence of stroke among Māori prompted neuropsychologist Margaret Dudley to research rehabilitation in stroke suffers for her PhD, and this week she’ll graduate with her doctorate at the University of Waikato marae.

“The incidence of stroke among Māori is higher than any other population in New Zealand so I knew that any research into this subject area would be beneficial to Māori,” says Dudley.

Her findings were encouraging in that they showed that attention process training can be beneficial in the remediation of attention deficit in the early stages of stroke. “This adds to a pool of evidence for the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation post neurological trauma and will be useful for people such as clinical neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists.”

Margaret Dudley (of Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri and Ngati Kahu heritage) first began researching cognitive rehabilitation as part of a Health Research Council funded Stroke Attention Rehabilitation Trial (START) project and was subsequently awarded a Clinical Research Training Fellowship that provided her with a full time wage for three years while she studied for her PhD. It also enabled her to travel to present her findings at a World Stroke Conference in South Korea.

Her chief supervisor during her PhD study was Dr Nicola Starkey who Dudley says kept her on track from start to finish. “Margaret’s dedication, perseverance and sense of humour played an important role in her PhD success,” says Dr Starkey.

Margaret Dudley was acknowledged in the recent Māori Academic Achievement Awards and says she would like to see more Māori achieving in academia, so it becomes the norm rather than the exception.

“So if I am to be a role model for Māori academic excellence to help set a new pattern then that’s fine with me. I encourage Māori to seek a career in health. Māori are over-represented on almost every health indicator and I believe it is up to us to help ourselves – we are best placed to do that.”

She says she’d particularly encourage other Māori into the field of neuropsychology because there are many Māori who suffer neurological insult, but there are very few Māori neuropsychologists to assist them. “To my knowledge I am the only Māori neuropsychologist working in Auckland.” Dudley is currently working in the Person Centred Research Centre at AUT.

There’ll be plenty of whanau joining her for graduation in Hamilton. “They are practising their waiata right now. My cousin said she wants to bring her mokopuna because although we come from a tiny little place in Tai Tokerau, [Northland] she wants to show them that anything is achievable if you strive hard for it.”

ENDS

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