HIGH POINT, N.C., Oct. 26, 2017 – Members of the High Point University community frequently conduct, publish and share research and creative works in a variety of ways. Below is a recap of research initiatives from the past month.
Physical Therapy Professors Publish Editorial in International Journal
Dr. Eric Hegedus, professor and founding chair of the Department of Physical Therapy at HPU, and Dr. Alexis Wright, assistant professor and assistant chair of the Department of Physical Therapy at HPU, recently published an editorial, titled “Evidence-based practice is not enough,” in the Physical Therapy Reviews. The publication is an international journal that publishes contemporary reviews, papers and editorials within physical therapy.
The editorial details the fact that physical therapy and medicine have both been talking for more than 30 years about using evidence to help make delivery of care more efficient and effective; to make it better.
“While using evidence has helped individual patients, overall, the cost of healthcare is rising, obesity and its side effects – high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease – are rising, and we have an opioid crisis in the United States,” Hegedus explains.
“For example, did you know that a national survey reports that 1.9 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain medicines in 2014, and 586,000 suffered from a heroin disorder? Or that ‘unintentional’ opioid poisonings took the lives of 998 North Carolinians in 2015 – a 900 percent increase since 1999? The only way we can hope to solve these problems is through examination and modification of the healthcare system.”
Hegedus adds that oftentimes, healthcare providers lean on opioids when it comes to treating pain, while a profession like physical therapy offers many effective options and alternatives.
“A systems approach advocates for a truly interprofessional model of healthcare delivery, where your best, most efficient and most effective first choice might be a physical therapist, a physician assistant, an athletic trainer or an exercise physiologist,” Hegedus explains. “In order to change the system, the change agents must also be interdisciplinary and include medical providers, health science providers, patients, insurers, and government and legal representatives. The best way forward is by working together.”
Dean of School of Art and Design Publishes Book Chapter
Dr. John Turpin, dean of the School of Art and Design at HPU, recently published a chapter in the book “Architectures of Display: Department Stores and Modern Retail.” The book includes a range of case studies from the 1870s to the present, which analyzes strategies of displays in department stores and modern retail spaces.
Turpin’s chapter, “Decorator turned merchandiser: The retail displays of Dorothy Draper” analyzes Draper’s unique approach to the design of retail environments. During the 1930s and 40s, at a time when Art Deco and Streamline modernism grew in popularity, Draper relied on the romanticism of the past to create atmospheres that supported the aspirations of the middle class, which were traditionally connected to the design language of the elite’s grandiose homes.
Tapping into their desire for social progress, Draper designed retail displays to mimic experiences that would influence the decision-making process of the consumer. In the end, her neo-Baroque designs became her trademark and made her one of the most recognizable names in design.
The book incorporates the work of established scholars and emerging researchers who worked within a range of disciplinary contexts and traditions that shed light on what constitutes modern retail, and the ways in which interior designers, architects and artists have built or transformed their practice in response to the commercial context.