• Associate Professor, Neurological Surgery
• Associate Professor, Occupational Therapy

• B.S. in Psychology at Loyola University, New Orleans
• Ph.D. at Washington University

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In a stroke patient, doctor sees power of brain to recover Wall Street Journal Nov. 30, 2005 -- Story on the growing interest in neurointensive care treatment for stroke patients. Article mentions a 2001 critical care study by WUSTL researchers Michael Diringer and Dorothy Edwards, who studied records of more than 40,000 patients with bleeding in their brains. Patients in a regular intensive-care unit were 3.4 times as likely to die as patients in a neurointensive unit, after adjusting for the severity of the bleeding.

Stroke is the major cause of disability in adults in the United States. Disability due to stroke is a major public health problem that costs an estimated 13 billion dollars per year. Although most people who survive stroke recover to some degree, this recovery is often incomplete, leaving the individual with significant occupational performance deficits. We know very little about the factors influencing the full recovery of life roles and participation in prior activities. These deficits often produce long term need for assistance from caregivers and society. Over the past two years Edwards' team has initiated a series of studies designed to characterize the relationship between different types of cognitive, sensorimotor, visual spatial impairments and functional status across the continuum of care as well as to relate these measures to occupational performance and quality of life after a person returns to the community. One goal of these studies is to identify reliable, valid and clinically viable measures to guide occupational therapists treating persons with stroke. The second goal is to examine the outcomes of stroke rehabilitation in order to provide data to support the creation of new rehabilitation models designed to decrease secondary disability and increase quality of life for both individuals and families coping with the aftermath of stroke.

Her studies also focus on individuals with progressive degenerative neurologic disease. It is estimated that Alzheimer's disease affects 12 % of persons over the age of 65. However, little is known about the medical, social, and functional status of minorities and low income older persons with dementia who for cultural, economic or social reasons do not seek help from existing medical and social service systems. Although the medical literature about dementia of the Alzheimer Type (DAT) has grown exponentially over the past decade, the impact of dementia on minority older persons living in the community remains largely unexplained. The Memory and Aging Project Satellite (MAPS) of the Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) provides home based diagnosis, treatment, and case management for minority and medically under served residents of the St. Louis metropolitan area. The MAPS program has both research and clinical functions. Currently, she is evaluating the occupational performance of African American elders with dementia and describing the environments in which they live. She also is examining the cultural sensitivity and accuracy of the assessment tools developed for use with white middle class elders in our sample of minority and low income older adults. The goal of this work is to document the role of the environment and habits of every day life in supporting the preservation of functional independence in persons with cognitive loss.

Edwards' work in the laboratory is directed toward understanding the mechanisms which support independence and quality of life in the community for older adults. The focus of our research includes: 1) examination of the performance of basic and instrumental activities of daily living in context, 2) describing the environmental factors which support or prevent community participation of older adults with neurological disease, 3) documenting the impact of neurological disease and functional impairment on family caregivers and 4) determinants of quality of life.