SAM HEADLEY continued from previous page


were succumbing to cardiovascular disease, particularly heart attacks and strokes, due to a sedentary lifestyle caused by their affliction. “Even though my efforts to slow the progres-


Headley also received help from a team of individuals from


sion of the disease were what I really wanted to focus on, and it really fits into the mission of Springfield College—keeping people as well as you can for as long as you can—I realized that I was asking the wrong research question,” Headley said.“It wasn’t about progression, because only the lucky ones, only the strong ones,were going to progress to stage V.” Headley decided that it would be worthwhile to see if a healthy


Headley also hopes to provide away for


doctors...(to) be able to


knowwhich patientswould respond better to exercise andwhichwould respond better tomedication.


routine of cardiovascular exercise would cut down patients’ rates of heart disease and prolong a higher-quality of life. Therefore, Headley is recruiting only patients with stage III disease and whose kidney disease was brought on by hypertension and diabetes. Headley also hopes to provide a way for doctors to decide


whether a patient will be susceptible to improvement from exercise by measuring blood pressure before and after exercise sessions every few weeks. He hopes to correlate the amount a patient’s blood pressure changes, immediately after exercising and hours later,with how his or her body responds to the exercise treatment. Therefore, doctors will be able to know which patients would respond better to exercise and which would respond better to medication. For this latest project, Headley will again rely on Germain and the


rest of the nephrologists atWestern New England Renal and Trans- plant Associates, including Springfield College alumnus Dr. Anthony Poindexter ’93, to recruit patients for his research.


Springfield College. Faculty members RichardWood ’99, G’01, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise science, provided expertise in nutrition and lipid metabolism; Charles Milch, assistant professor of physician assistant studies,was a key contributor to devel- oping the research plan;Mary Ann Coughlin, D.P.E., associate professor of research and statis- tics, assists with the statistics; and Britton Brewer, Ph.D., professor of psychology, helped with issues related to subject compliance. In addition, a group of graduate students will work as personal train-


ers to develop exercise routines for the patients. The experience is also a positive one for his assistants. “Dr. Headley believes that all graduate students should have some


clinical and research experience before they go out to try to find a job, so he has been helping me get involved in research here on campus,”Goodwin said.“I really like working with Dr. Headley and the other lab assistants. I’ve been learning a lot, and I am gaining valuable experience in my field. “This is the type of work I want to do once I graduate,”Goodwin


added.“My ideal job would be working in a hospital, conducting clinical exercise programs and performing research in some type of clinical field.” At this writing, Headley was preparing a report on his earlier


study on whether the progression of kidney disease can be slowed by exercise and preparing a fall poster presentation to be delivered at a conference of the American Society of Nephrologists.1


Kerri Vautour is the editorial assistant in the Office of Marketing and Communications.


Headley oversees the work of graduate assistant Thomas Black.


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TRIANGLE 1 Vol. 81, No. 3


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