WEBINAR SERIES (June - July)

Systematic reviews: From evidence to recommendation

SEDL's Center on KTDRR's Community of Practice (CoP) on Evidence for Disability and Rehabilitation (D&R) Research is sponsoring a series of webinars that will address systematic reviews, with a special focus on what is considered evidence and why, and how evidence is qualified, synthesized, and turned into recommendations for clinicians and other practitioners.

Dr. Marcel Dijkers of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will share information and encourage discussion with participants about these issues within the context of D&R research. The 90 minute webinars will use the Adobe Connect^™ meeting platform and each session will be archived for later access. The CoP will continue to examine these topics through teleconferences and other information sessions.

Session	Topics	Date
1	A blast from the past: Systematic reviews and the traditional evidence pyramid An overview of the process and tools of systematic reviewing, with a focus on assessment and synthesis of evidence, and the idea of a research design-based pyramid of evidence underlying conclusions and recommendations	June 4, 2014
2	Going beyond design and intervention: The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Clinical Practice Guideline process and other approaches A discussion of how AAN and others have brought in research design details and quality of research implementation in grading evidence, and have gone beyond intervention research.	June 18, 2014
3	Bringing in the patient/client: The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) process A presentation on the GRADE approach, with its emphasis on the values and preferences of patients/clients, and flexibility in grading evidence. How does it fit with disability and rehabilitation research?	July 2, 2014
4	There is more to be done: Future possibilities….will we ever get there? A discussion of future developments in qualifying evidence that might benefit disability/rehabilitation practice.	July 16, 2014

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About the Presenter

Marcel Dijkers, PhD, FACRM, is research professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and senior investigator in the Brain Injury Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Dijkers is director of the NIDILRR-funded Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project (DRRP) on Classification and Measurement of Medical Rehabilitation Interventions, as well as the Mt. Sinai Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training project. He is also senior investigator for the New York TBI Model System (NY-TBI-MS) funded by NIDILRR. Dr. Dijkers has published more than 120 articles and chapters on the social and functional consequences of SCI/TBI, the delivery of health services for these conditions, outcome measurement, and methodological and statistical issues in rehabilitation research.