Synopsis
Arguably, the most important developmental outcome of childhood and adolescence is to grow a good brain. A stable supply of glucose is sine qua non for optimal brain development. Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is the exemplar chronic condition of childhood that disrupts blood and tissue glucose delivery. Thus, the assessment of cognitive, psychological, functional and morphological brain outcomes in T1D is apposite.
Up until the early 1990’s T1D outcome research was largely focussed on renal, neurologic and retinal outcomes. The RCH Diabetes Cohort Study commenced in 1990 and was the first prospective and longitudinal study to assess brain development from the time of T1D diagnosis. One hundred and thirty newly diagnosed patients with T1D were sequentially recruited, together with healthy community controls, stratified for age and gender. Participants have been assessed at baseline, 2 years, 6 years, 12 years and now 30+ years from diagnosis. The RCH Diabetes Cohort Study is ongoing but has thus far resulted in 10 seminal publications and in 1999 was editorialised in Diabetes Care as “the seminal, prospective study documenting cognitive skills, mental health, and metabolic control from diagnosis in childhood”. In the diabetes world, it is for this study more than any other that RCH/MCRI are recognised.
Elisabeth Northam has been the lead investigator of this study since inception. Now on the eve of her cohort reaching mid-adulthood she will describe their outcomes and how these affect and have been affected by their T1D trajectory from childhood.
Speaker
Associate Professor Elisabeth Northam is a Senior Research Fellow in the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Elisabeth joined the Department of Psychology, RCH as a clinical psychologist/neuropsychologist in 1984,and has held a variety of clinical, research and academic positions from then to the present. In addition to her clinical work, Elisabeth was convenor of the PhD/Masters, Clinical Psychology (Child Specialisation ) programme at the University of Melbourne from 2004-1013 and in that capacity supervised the research of over 20 post graduate students. Her research has focussed on the neurocognitive and psychological impact of paediatric illness and injury and in particular the impact of type 1 diabetes on children diagnosed in childhood She has been a chief investigator on NHMRC and Junior Diabetes Foundation International Research grants and is currently a co-investigator on a National Institute Health grant 2021-2025.