Hill, Catherine M - University of Southampton

个人简介

Dr Hill was appointed Senior Lecturer in Child Health in 1998 having graduated in medicine from the University of Southampton. Having completed basic clinical training in general paediatrics and neonatology, followed by a position as cystic fibrosis research fellow, she pursued specialist training in Community Child Health with a focus on neurodevelopment and behavioural medicine. This background placed her in an ideal position to develop services for Sleep Medicine within her role as consultant. As paediatric sleep medicine is an emerging field in the UK she supplemented her training in polysomnographic techniques both at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Sydney Australia and the Atlanta School of Sleep Medicine. This enabled her to obtain funding to develop a two bedded paediatric polysomnography research laboratory in the Southampton Wellcome Trust Clinical Research facility. She now heads up a multi-disciplinary sleep team based within Solent NHS Trust which receives supra-regional referrals and provides training courses for sleep professionals nationally. Her research interests focus on the interplay between sleep and neurocognition particularly in children with developmental disorders. Dr Hill has promoted her work and the importance of sleep in children through a number of media events including documentaries, radio appearances and articles in the national press.

研究领域

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Dr Hill’s research focuses on the interplay between sleep physiology and neurocognition in childhood. Early laboratory work in typically developing children with sleep disordered breathing demonstrated an association between altered cerebral blood flow velocity and measures of executive function. (British Sleep Society– new investigator award 2005) Disruptions in neurocognitive processes in this condition may relate to intermittent hypoxia, disruption of the continuity of the sleep process or a combination of both of these factors. To explore these dimensions further study of executive function and sleep quality in both larger populations of typically developing children (with colleagues in the Developmental Brain Behaviour laboratory, Department of Psychology) have indicated an association between total time asleep and both executive function and behavioural measures. Dr Hill led a comparative study of Andean children exposed to chronic hypoxia living at high altitude and lowland controls. (‘Development and Sleep at Altitude ‘DeSat’ study with collaborators from the Institute of Child Health London and UWA, Perth). This large field study of over 240 participants exploited a wide range of physiological measures including polysomnography within a mobile sleep laboratory, transcranial Doppler cerebral blood flow measures and psychological testing. Testing across a range of ages this study aimed to further understanding of the interplay between sleep quality, hypoxia and neurocognition from a developmental perspective. Results are now being presented from this large data-set. Children with developmental disabilities have a high prevalence of sleep disorders and are particularly vulnerable to negative neurocognitive effects of the same due to their limited cognitive reserve. Dr Hill has supervised a series of studies quantifying sleep disruption in such groups including population based studies of sleep problems and nocturnal sleep disordered breathing in children with Down syndrome (Best free paper prize. BACCH 2007), cerebral palsy, William’s syndrome and Autistic spectrum disorder. She is currently co-supervising a doctoral student with Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith (Birkbeck College, University College London) and Dr Dagmara Annaz (Middlesex University) in the study of sleep and memory consolidation in children with William’s syndrome and Down syndrome. Sleep disordered breathing is a particular issue for subsets of children with developmental disorders. As well as highlighting this concern in her work with Down syndrome children Dr Hill has undertaken detailed studies (both in the sleep lab and using home based respiratory monitoring) of children with severe motor impairment. The latter work was funded through the Paul Polani award (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health). Through this work and her field laboratory work at altitude she has developed her experience in home based sleep and respiratory monitoring technologies. Other interests: Dr Hill’s clinical work in adoption as a Hampshire Adoption Medical advisor and as Chair of the Health Group Advisory Committee of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering 2005-2010 led to an interest in the developmental consequences of early life trauma and neglect in childhood. As well as publishing many practice-based journal articles, chapters and original research studies in this field, she has presented evidence to the Department of Children Schools and Families Parliamentary Select Committee about the health of children in Public Care.