Faculty Profile

As a clinician, teacher, and researcher, I have focused on adaptation to injury, illness, and disability, initially characterizing symptoms, coping strategies and attributions in head injured adults and a control group suffering from non-neurological injuries. Recognizing that the physical context in which such patients recover may compromise or enhance their functioning and continued healing, I currently serve as principal investigator of a 3 stage lab-based research project in cooperation with colleagues in Partners, DSM. This project joins evidence-based medicine with evidence-based design to understand the effects of hospital-based noise on sleep disruption, using a recorded “virtual hospital sound-scape” as the source for stimuli. Through this unique interdisciplinary project drawing on behavioral medicine, acoustical engineering, and sleep neuroscience, we will contribute data and analyses to the current decision-making cycle for the official Guidelines for the Construction of Healthcare Facilities. These Guidelines, which become law in the majority of states, are for the first time in the 2010 cycle incorporating acoustics to improve healthcare quality. It is projected that our conclusions will have a concrete impact on 200 billion dollars of health facility construction in this decade. I am also participating in a parallel project on the same inpatient unit on which recordings were made, studying the impact of changing night care behavioral protocols to prevent sleep disruption and improve patient outcomes.