Professor Dawn A Skelton

Professor in Ageing and Health
Department of Physiotherapy and Paramedicine
Dawn Skelton is Professor of Ageing and Health in the Department of Physiotherapy and Paramedicine. She is a member of the Falls and Frailty programme within the Ageing Well Research Group. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

As an Exercise Physiologist, she has a keen interest in exercise rehabilitation within a falls prevention scope, from the hospital based physiotherapy delivery to the community based specialist exercise instructor provision. Her current research ranges from motivation and patient preference to engaging the very frail, increasing adherence to long term exercise and working with the pre-frail to prevent poor outcomes later. Implementation, fidelity and quality of evidence-based interventions when delivered in different settings is also her passion. Whilst specialising in randomised controlled trials, she often leads mixed methods studies (including the MRC funded Seniors USP: Understanding Sedentary Patterns) and is a lead and co-author on multiple Cochrane Systematic Reviews.

Recent research includes NIHR funded programme grants in exercise as an intervention for frailty (HomeHealth), falls prevention (VIOLET, PhISICAL, Innovate UK MIRA). Work on co-creation to improve acceptability has been funded by Wellcome (Strong and Balanced Offer) and EC Horizon 2020 ITN (HealthCascade). She works closely with colleagues in Norway and Ireland on exercise following discharge from hospital and those receiving care at home, and colleagues in Sweden on smart phone provision of falls prevention exercise.

Current doctoral supervision includes a range of projects related to falls and frailty, such as: conveyance to hospital following a fall, functional decline in hospital at home settings, functional fitness in older adults, and physiotherapy student led exercise as part of a falls pathway.

She Chaired the Royal Osteoporosis Society’s Statement on Exercise and Osteoporosis (2018) and the Older People panel for the UK’s update of the Physical Activity for Health Guidelines (2019). She is currently Chair of the British Geriatrics Society Rehabilitation Group and is part of the Community Rehabilitation Alliance and the National Falls Prevention Co-ordination Group within Public Health England. She is a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Older People and Frailty Policy Research Unit (OPFPRU) funded by the NIHR.

She recently received the British Geriatrics Society Marjory Warren Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in translating falls prevention research into practice. She has also been honoured with an honorary medical doctorate (MD) by Umea University for her work in functional exercise with older people. She is also Director of the not for profit training company, Later Life Training.

Dawn is also an Honorary Professor with NHS Lanarkshire, where she is a member of the Falls Prevention Strategy Group.

Research Interests (Keywords): Falls and fracture prevention, sedentary behaviour interventions, frailty, foot health and vision in relation to falls, behavioural strategies, motivation to exercise, implementation science, quality of life, older adults.