Dr Frances Batchelor
- Director of Clinical Gerontology/ Principal Research Fellow at the National Ageing Research institute (NARI)
- Research Lead for the Melbourne Ageing Research Collaboration (MARC)
Dr Batchelor is a research and clinical physiotherapist with over 30 years of experience in rehabilitation, aged care and neurology. She completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2010, where she conducted a large RCT of a multifactorial falls prevention for people returning home after stroke rehabilitation. Her career focuses on collaborative approaches to research, policy and practice change to improve lives of older people. Dr Batchelor's research interests are falls prevention, healthy ageing, physical activity, the role of technology in ageing and improving health services for older people.
Research and Clinical Physiotherapist
What are you planning to do with your fellowship and how it will help your career?
The Jean Hailes Fellowship will allow me to explore the important issue of accidental falls for women, particularly those aged 85 and over who are receiving low level or no aged care support, as falls constitute the 4th leading cause of death in this cohort. With the fellowship, I will be able to visit researchers in Western Australia who have similar interests, attend the 1st International Falls and Postural Stability conference in Kuala Lumpur and explore opportunities with researchers in other countries such as the UK and Germany. A focus will be on exploring successful models for increasing uptake of effective falls prevention interventions, particularly exercise, through the lens of a life course approach and by understanding the needs of different cohorts within the population.
The Fellowship will assist me to build national and international collaborations and provide opportunities to raise awareness of falls in older women to impact on both policy and practice.
