GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A College of Health and Human Performance graduate student won “Best Overall Graduate Student Poster” at the 3rd Annual Women’s Health Research Day on March 24, 2005, sponsored by the University of Florida’s Women’s Health Research Center.

All faculty, fellows, residents and graduate students from colleges across campus were invited to present their recent or on-going research on various pioneering topics of women’s health.

Coleen Martinez, a graduate student in the Department of Health Education and Behavior specializing in adapted physical activity took home the $200 award for her presentation of the research she has been conducting at Fit for Life Fitness Center and Physical Therapy for the last two years under the supervision of Dr. Christine Stopka, professor in the Department of Health Education and Behavior.

"Coleen is most deserving of this award,” Stopka said. “It is wonderful to see her hard work and expertise appreciated by others. Her excellent research skills, as well as her joy to see her patients improve so much with the program...clearly make this award very, very special!"

The study presentation submitted to this conference was based on the broader research that Martinez began as an internship project during her undergraduate career in HHP.  The intervention studied the effects of exercise therapy on individuals with peripheral arterial disease.  Until recently, physical therapists’s exercise prescription involved patients performing cardiovascular exercise at pain threshold for intermittent periods of time.  Martinez’s program encouraged individuals to walk on a treadmill for a continuous period of 30-50 minutes at a pain free level.  Results showed improvements for all areas measured including total distance walked, total time walked and velocity during the period of three months. 

Not only did Martinez win this award, but her study is being published in the March edition of ADVANCE journal for physical therapists. 

Implications for this study are far reaching in practice. 

“Recently, Medicare has incorporated exercise therapy into their coverage and will pay for this treatment,” Matinez said. “We hope to broaden horizons for physical therapists in this arena.  Further, this type of therapy can be integrated into fitness centers as aerobics classes for its members.”