Doctoral Candidate
Research Assistant
Hayley Leake is a research assistant and a member of the pain research group headed by Dr James McAuley, and the Centre for Pain IMPACT at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). She is also a Doctoral Candidate at the University of South Australia (UniSA) under the supervision of Professor Lorimer Moseley. Her doctoral research centres around the development of pain education interventions for adolescents with chronic pain. Hayley’s research includes a systematic review exploring mechanisms of treatments for paediatric pain; a Delphi-survey for consensus on learning objectives of adolescent pain science education; and a mixture of qualitative studies exploring how youth and their parents understand pain. Hayley’s research has been presented at national (Australian Pain Society) and international conferences (International Symposium on Pediatric Pain).
Hayley is a physiotherapist, with a clinical career in both public and private settings in Australia. She also holds a casual academic position at the University of New South Wales, within the School of Public Health and Community Medicine and is involved in the teaching and evaluating of undergraduate students.
Medicines are the most common treatment for back pain. The aim of this program of research is to improve our understanding of the clinical effects of medicines.
Studies currently in progress:
Completed studies:
Medicines for Back Pain – Publications:
Medicines for Back Pain – Registrations of Study Protocols:
THIAGO FOLLY Research Assistant
ANIKA HAIGH Research Assistant
PAULINE ZAHARA Research Assistant
DR IAN SKINNER Postdoctoral Research Fellow
There is evidence of impaired implicit motor imagery performance in people with chronic neck pain, which may suggest disruptions to proprioceptive representation of the neck. These disruptions seem specific to the neck (performance on hand images intact) but non-specific to the exact location of neck pain.
The Internet in general, and YouTube in particular, is now one of the most popular sources of health-related information. Pain neuroscience education has become a primary tool for managing persistent pain, based in part on the discovery that information about pain can change pain. Our objective was to examine the availability, characteristics, and content of YouTube videos that address the neuroscience of pain.
To evaluate the concurrent validity and test-retest reliability of a mobile tablet for assessing LRJ. The mobile tablet demonstrated good to excellent concurrent validity with the desktop computer in two separate samples. The mobile tablet also demonstrated good to excellent test-retest reliability. The mobile tablet for LRJ is a valid alternative to the original desktop version.