Cynthia Srikesavan

I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Physiotherapy in January 1998 from the Government College of Physiotherapy (GCP), Tiruchirappalli, India. I then started working in different teaching capacities alongside my clinical responsibilities in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat. Following my Master’s degree in Psychology in 2003, I completed my MPhil in Psychology in 2004. In 2009, I was awarded a Master’s degree in Physiotherapy with specialisation in neurological conditions.

In September 2010, I joined the multi-disciplinary PhD program in Applied Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, Canada and obtained my Doctorate degree in February 2015. My PhD thesis investigated the feasibility of conducting a randomized controlled trial on a novel, task-specific hand exercise program in people with rheumatoid arthritis or hand osteoarthritis. I am particularly interested in mixed methods for implementation research and cross-cultural adaptation of patient reported outcome measures in musculoskeletal conditions.

I began working at the University of Oxford in June 2015. I am currently involved in two different implementation projects of the Strengthening and Stretching for Rheumatoid Arthritis of the Hand (SARAH) exercise programme for people with difficulties in hand function due to rheumatoid arthritis. I am developing the SARAH exercise programme as a web-based SARAH training programme (i-SARAH) for NHS therapists to aid its translation in their routine practice and also as a web-based home exercise programme directly accessed by people with rheumatoid arthritis.  I am also working on a systematic review of the effectiveness of web-based rehabilitation interventions designed for people with rheumatoid arthritis, and exploring patients' experiences with the interventions they received for their frozen shoulder in the multi-centre UK-FROST trial.