RESEARCH ROUND-UP
Pain relief for sickle cell patients Nursing Collegiate Professor Ardith Doorenbos, PhD, RN, FAAN, will lead a $7.1 million, five-year national study to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture and guided relaxation for people with chronic pain from sickle cell disease, or SCD. The National Institutes of Health grant is part of its Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL, aimed at improving prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction. "The opioid crisis in the U.S. is very severe, and some states have had more deaths from opioid overdoses than from car accidents,” Doorenbos says. “We're trying to do what we can to reduce opioid use in the sickle cell disease population who have high pain levels and opioid use.” Sickle cell disease affects as many as 100,000 people in the U.S., and at least 20 million worldwide. Pain, both acute and chronic, is a constant companion to those living with SCD, and is so severe that it requires opioids to attempt to keep it at tolerable levels.
“The opioid crisis in the U.S. is very severe, and some states have had more deaths from opioid overdoses than from car accidents.” For the study, 360 SCD patients will receive acupuncture twice a week for five weeks. UIC Nursing associate professor Judith Schlaeger, PhD, MS ’88, BSN ’80, FAAN, a practicing licensed acupuncturist, developed the SCD treatment plan. Patients will also be asked to use guided relaxation techniques at least once a day. Both acupuncture and guided meditation were proven effective in pilot studies on SCD pain management. The researchers will be working with patients with sickle cell disease in the fall of 2021, pending additional approvals from the UIC Institutional Review Board.
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College of Nursing
Quinn named Minnich Professor Clinical professor Laurie Quinn, PhD ’96, RN, FAAN, FAHA, CDE, was named the Katherine M. Minnich Endowed Professor and director of the Center for Sleep and Health Research at the College of Nursing. “Dr. Quinn’s accomplishments are stellar,” says Dean Terri Weaver. “She is a dedicated, talented teacher and innovative researcher who received universal endorsement for this appointment.” Over the past 20 years, Quinn has maintained a research program that focuses on improving the health of people with diabetes—looking at factors such as sleep–and reducing the burden of diabetes complications. Quinn, the inaugural Dr. Mi Ja Kim Endowed Faculty Research Award recipient, is working with engineers at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago to develop an artificial pancreas that would revolutionize the way people with diabetes control their disease.
Laurie Quinn, left, sets up her lab with research assistants.
