Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: June 22, 2023

Present:   Katie Grenon, Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Liliane Savard,  Connie van Eeghen, Liz Winterbauer (7)

 1.                   Warm Up:

2.                   Emily’s 3 posters: presenting at the World Parkinson Congress; would like feedback on first impressions, layout, and recommendations for improvements. Emily used Biorender to develop these posters, available through UVM for free.

a.       First poster (analysis of PPMI data) First impressions

                                                   i.      Attractive, some white space could be used better. Consider reducing methodology.

1.       Poster: get people to stop and talk and connect

                                                 ii.      No naked decimals! (0.00) and no over precision (3 decimal places might be too many)

                                               iii.      What is the main message? 

1.       This is about the dataset and what new information was learned

                                               iv.      Simplify title; consider including the main message after the “:” or deleting the words after it entirely

                                                 v.      Coefficient table: is the goal to test the variable “PD duration” and confirm that the results were not confounded or to explore the potential significance of all the variables?

1.       Keep the table or link to with a QR code?

                                               vi.      Results: consider focusing (with graphs) on one or two points?

b.       Second poster (symptom progression) First impressions

                                                   i.      Also attractive; introduction and objective can be said more directly

                                                 ii.      Recheck headings

                                               iii.      Title considerations: what is the message

                                               iv.      Bar charts: differences in SD are not as meaningful as CI ranges, or eliminate the bars

                                                 v.      Eliminate the tables; put key numbers on the graphs

                                               vi.      Bring handouts with contact info/QR codes

c.       Third poster (depression and cognition) First impressions

                                                   i.      Beautiful box chart: what is the causal relationship presented? Consider putting MoCA on the x-axis.

                                                 ii.      Provide English interpretation

                                               iii.      Move key values from the table to the chart; eliminate the chart

                                               iv.      Message:

1.       At five years, depressed people had more dementia, but not at baseline

2.       Mean scores didn’t change much over time – is this important?  If so, say why

                                                 v.      What was the question: predictor is dementia (or decline?) and outcome is depression (or depression after decline?). Or decline in cognition and change in mood?

1.       Consider individual change scores the predictor

3.                   Schedule for rest of the month:

a.       June 29- Jen

Recorded by: CvE