Clinical Exercise and Rehabilitation Research Group (CLEAR)

About us

The Clinical Exercise and Rehabilitation Research Group (CLEAR) focuses on developing and evaluating exercise interventions and exercise response in health and disease.

Our research covers a range of populations and settings, from community services for sedentary people to physiological/neurophysiological investigations in the lab. It has a particular focus on adults and children with neurological and degenerative conditions.

We work with the CLEAR Trust to enable children and adults with complex health conditions and reduced physical ability to participate in exercise and rehabilitation programmes.

Visit the Clear Trust website

People with neurological conditions exercising in a gym under supervision

Research impact

thermal imaging of people exercising

The research carried out by our interdisciplinary team has enabled people with long-term conditions take part in physical activity and exercise. Supported by over 26 external competitive grants, we have provided evidence and developed interventions for safe effective exercise, across a number of conditions, producing over 50 peer reviewed publications.

Our research has improved understanding of dose response and safe effective delivery of exercise in the community. It has also revealed disease specific altered exercise response and recovery profiles.

Recently we were part of the project leadership developing the Moving medicine consultation guide for Parkinson’s. We also worked with OLT Ltd (a training provider for teachers) on their dyspraxia and developmental co-ordination disorder course, incorporating content on:

  • exercise
  • activities
  • interventions to help improve fitness and co-ordination.

Leadership

Johnny Collett

Dr Johnny Collett

Senior Lecturer in Clinical Exercise and Rehabilitation

View profile

Membership

Staff

Name Role Email
Mark Campbell Associate Lecturer m.campbell@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Shelly Coe Senior Lecturer in Nutrition scoe@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Helen Dawes Honorary Professor hdawes@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Anne Delextrat Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science adelextrat@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Patrick Esser Reader in Sport and Rehabilitation Technology pesser@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Ken Howells Associate Lecturer kfhowells@brookes.ac.uk
Kimberly Slessor Post Doctoral Research Assistant kslessor@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Ben Weedon Post Doctoral Research Assistant b.weedon@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Mark Williams Programme Lead for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation williams.m@brookes.ac.uk

Resources

An example Exercise Workbook that directed the exercise programme and acted as a diary for the participant to record their progress in our study on a self-managed community exercise programme for people with Parkinson's. (Collett J, et al, (2016) Phase II randomised controlled trial of a 6-month self-managed community exercise programme for people with Parkinson’s disease. JNNP)

An example Handwriting Workbook that contains writing activities which participants can practice at home. This intervention was used for the control group in our study investigating exercise for people with Parkinson's and produced some interesting findings in its own right. (Collett J, et al (2017) A long-term self-managed handwriting intervention for people with Parkinson’s disease: results from the control group of a phase II randomized controlled trial. Clin Rebili)

Courses

We aim to disseminate the research results via courses linked to the Centre for Movement, Occupational and Rehabilitation Sciences (MOReS), such as our CPD courses.

For example, the Level 7 Exercise Prescription for Long-Term Neurological Conditions course that uses national occupational standards we developed to train exercise and health care professionals to support people with long-term neurological condition to exercise.