Sue Gardner
The University of Iowa College of Nursing is getting a federal grant of nearly $2 million to set up a center to study treatments for chronic diseases.
U-I nursing professor Sue Gardner is one of the co-directors of the research center and says it could make significant contributions to improve the lives of patients with multiple such illnesses.
“The research will specifically target persons who have more than one chronic condition,” Gardner says, “and actually the prevalence of people who have more than one is pretty astounding.” Gardner describes a chronic condition as one that cannot be cured, only managed, such as diabetes, heart disease or arthritis. Gardner says it’s fairly common for people to have multiple chronic diseases.
“This will enable us to very much tailor both prevention and treatment interventions for this very complex population,” she says. The U-I College of Nursing is one of five institutions nationwide granted federal funds to research chronic diseases. The grant money covers five years.
(Thanks to Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio/photo courtesy of the University of Iowa)