Dr Rosie Morris

Associate Professor

Department: Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

I am currently a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Advanced Fellow. My research focuses on the relationship between mobility (including gait, turning, balance and falls) and cognition in older adults and people with neurological condictions (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, Dementia etc.), and the importance of this relationship to clinical practice; particularly Physiotherapy. To conduct my research and understand the relationships involved I use novel digital technologies that could be applied within clinical practice in the future. Ultimately, my research aims to develop new understanding of neurological impairment and enhance clinical assessment and rehabilitation.

I completed my NIHR funded doctoral research at Newcastle University, which focused on gait as a biomarker for cognitive decline in people with Parkinson’s disease with additional work focusing on the gait-cognition relationship in people with PD in the ‘real-world’ environment. I completed a postdoctoral training year at Newcastle University working on a project that focused on non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation as an intervention to increase cholinergic output and how this related to gait and cognition performance. Following this I became a postdoctoral fellow at Oregon Health and Science University (USA), where my main focus was on a large NIH-funded national study (Pacific-UDALL) assessing the role of Parkinson’s disease genotype and how this influences the gait-cognition relationship. I was awarded an NIHR Advanced Fellowship which commenced September 2024, this award supports the transition to an independent investigator and will fund work to co-design and assess a rehabiltation programme to improve turning in people with Parkinson's disease.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
130 - Head motion during turning in people with Parkinson’s disease and older adults: correlations with balance confidence, Cox, H., Rehman, R., Frith, J., Morris, R., Yarnall, A., Rochester, L., Alcock, L. 1 Apr 2025, In: Physiotherapy
216 Evaluation of the Keep On Keep Up (KOKU) programme for people with Parkinson’s, Das, J., Baker, K., Wilson-Menzfeld, G., Walker, R., Morris, R., Stuart, S., Rochester, L., Yarnall, A., Stanmore, E., Barry, G. 27 Mar 2025, In: Physiotherapy
Balance assessment in neurological conditions, Tait, P., Morris, R., Watermeyer, T., Timm, E., O'Keefe, J., Vitório, R., Stuart, S. 17 Jan 2025, Gait, Balance, and Mobility Analysis, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Elsevier
Digital measurement of ocular microtremor in Parkinson’s Disease: Protocol for a pilot study to assess reliability and clinical validation, Graham, L., Vitorio, R., Walker, R., Godfrey, A., Morris, R., Stuart, S. 8 Jan 2025, In: PLoS One
Future directions in clinical application of gait, balance and mobility analysis, Mason, R., Tait, P., Morris, R., Stuart, S. 17 Jan 2025, Gait, Balance, and Mobility Analysis, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Elsevier B.V.
Gait and mobility assessment in neurological conditions, Stuart, S., Tait, P., Das, J., Graham, L., Morris, R. 17 Jan 2025, Gait, Balance, and Mobility Analysis, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Elsevier B.V.
Gait, Balance, and Mobility Analysis: Theoretical, Technical, and Clinical Applications, Stuart, S., Morris, R. 17 Jan 2025
MoBI: Mobile Brain/Body Imaging to Understand Walking and Balance, Tait, P., Timm, E., O'Keefe, J., Watermeyer, T., Vitório, R., Morris, R., Stuart, S. 20 Feb 2025, Locomotion and Posture in Older Adults, Cham, Switzerland, Springer
Neuroimaging and cognitive correlates of postural control in Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review, Tait, P., Graham, L., Vitório, R., Watermeyer, T., Timm, E., O'Keefe, J., Stuart, S., Morris, R. 8 Feb 2025, In: Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Invited talk: Parkinson's Research at Northumbria University 2020

PGR Supervision

Patrick Tait Neural correlates of balance in ageing and Parkinson's disease (PD) Start Date: 01/10/2022
Lisa Graham Digital Eye-Movement Outcomes as a Biomarker for Neurological Injury and Disease Start Date: 15/09/2022