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April 17, 2017

VA rehabilitation scientist Dr. Linda Resnik honored with 2017 Magnuson Award

Linda Resnik, P.T., Ph.D., FAPTA Linda Resnik, P.T., Ph.D., FAPTA

Linda Resnik, P.T., Ph.D., FAPTA, a research career scientist with the Providence VA Medical Center in Rhode Island, has been awarded the Paul B. Magnuson Award for her work with Veterans who have experienced upper-limb loss.

The Magnuson Award is the VA Rehabilitation Research and Development (RR&D) service's highest honor—it is given to acknowledge entrepreneurship, humanitarianism, and dedication in service to Veterans.

Resnik has been recognized for her "extraordinary commitment to Veterans with limb loss, her contributions to the design and evaluation of prosthetic devices and controls...and her pioneering developments in the measurement and evaluation of rehabilitation care delivery."

Resnik directed the VA-funded optimization study that led to the approval of the Life Under Kinetic Evolution (LUKE) Arm for Veterans with upper-limb amputation, a revolutionary prosthetic device developed by DEKA Integrated Solutions Corporation and supported by grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It is the first computer-driven prosthetic arm that is capable of multiple, simultaneous movements.

(From left) Research health science specialist Frantzy Acluche and project coordinator Sarah Ekerholm discuss the DEKA arm, an advanced upper-limb prosthesis, with Dr. Linda Resnik. (Photo by Kimberly DiDonato)

(From left) Research health science specialist Frantzy Acluche and project coordinator Sarah Ekerholm discuss the DEKA arm, an advanced upper-limb prosthesis, with Dr. Linda Resnik. (Photo by Kimberly DiDonato)

"We need data to better understand the needs of people with upper-limb amputations and to assess their limitations in functioning, their participation in life roles, and their satisfaction with prosthetic devices and the amputation rehabilitation care that they have received," said Resnik, in a 2016 VA Research Currents article.

In testament to Resnik's leadership and achievements in VA research, she was awarded a VA RR&D Research Career Scientist Award in 2014 and a VA New England Health Care System Network Director's I CARE Award in 2017. She is also professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown University Medical School in Providence.

Resnik is director of a focus area concentrated on restoring limb function for the VA RR&D Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology (CfNN), a collaboration between PVAMC, Brown University, and affiliated hospitals whose researchers and clinicians are advancing neurotechnology to restore lost function.

In addition to having received public and private-sector research grants totaling more than $20 million over her career, she is also director of the Multi-Institution Center on Health Services Training and Research, or CoHSTAR. This center, funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy, aims to train highly skilled physical therapists and health policy researchers and mentor both young and established investigators in research methods.

* Listen to Dr. Resnik speak about her work with Veterans who experience traumatic upper-limb amputations.



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