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Media Releases
Emerging Hybrid Research:
Farming and Occupational Therapy
Columbia, Mo. (September 5, 2006) More than three million people call the farm or ranch their workplace. These workers frequently bend, twist, turn, reach, lift heavy loads, and walk long distances over uneven ground during a workday. And when their physically demanding day is over, the aches and pains they experience may not just be from a hard day's work, but also from arthritis.
Amanda Cochran knows from her first-hand experience growing up on the family farm how this type of work can lead to pain, injury, and disability. Now an occupational therapy (OT) student, Cochran is helping to lessen the toll arthritis takes on farmworkers with her work on a unique research project of the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center at University of Missouri-Columbia.
Cochran, together with Karen Funkenbush, a research associate and rural safety and health specialist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, provides arthritis prevention and self-care information to a network of 500 migrant health clinics through MARRTC's collaboration with the National Center for Farmworker Health. "Promotoras" or lay promoters deliver information directly to migrant workers and translate the medical jargon into understandable and culturally appropriate language. Workers can learn essential information like how to prevent arthritis, what are its symptoms and even how to improve their quality of life, if they have the disease.
Cochran, who will graduate in 2007 with a master's degree from the MU School of Health Professions, wants to keep making a difference by helping seasonal and migrant farm workers, as well as traditional farmers and ranchers develop, a healthy lifestyle. "When I graduate I would love to work for AgrAbility (AgrAbility is a project that assists people with disabilities employed in agriculture) helping people who work in agriculture to continue to do so in spite of injury, illness or disability" says Cochran.
The Missouri Arthritis Research Rehabilitation and Training Center (MARRTC) was established in 1971 at the University of Missouri-Columbia Arthritis Center. MARRTC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (H133B031120) and is the only federally funded arthritis rehabilitation research and training center in the country.
As part of the MU Health Communication Research Center (HCRC), MARRTC's mission is to become a national leader in the areas of disability management and communication, improve the quality of life and promote independent living among people who have arthritis and arthritic conditions. MARRTC's core message is "Disability is everyone's issue."
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