Long Term Conditions and Multimorbidity

The AGE Research Group focuses on the ageing syndromes of sarcopenia, frailty and multimorbidity. It is led by the NIHR Newcastle BRC Director, Professor Avan Sayer.  The work draws on a long history of outstanding ageing research and patient care in Newcastle, from discovery science to implementation. Reflecting this breadth, we also work closely with colleagues in the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria.

Current research aims to understand: 

• the biological changes in skeletal muscle that occur with age in conditions such as sarcopenia and frailty - MASS_Lifecourse study
• life course influences on ageing to identify ways to intervene earlier and prevent the onset of ageing syndromes – for example via our nutritional epidemiology using NSHD data
• interventions to treat ageing syndromes tested through experimental medicine studies and later-phase clinical trials – for instance the MET-PREVENT and LACE trials

Please take a look at our AGE Research Group website for more details of our work and interdisciplinary team. 

Developments in the use of electronic patient records and other healthcare applications have enabled the aggregation of health data into large-scale datasets  that can be used for health research. Across our theme there is increasing use of ‘big data’, employing machine learning and other computational techniques to interrogate patterns and clusters of long-term conditions.  This novel research will provide new insights that will help to improve understanding of the aetiology and the consequences of living with long-term conditions and multimorbidity. 

ADMISSION UK

The new ADMISSION UK: Multimorbidity Research Collaborative, is a 4-year UKRI/NIHR funded programme that focuses on multiple long-term conditions in hospital patients. Led by Newcastle University, ADMISSION is a partnership of scientists, clinicians and patients from five UK universities and hospitals: 

• Newcastle
• Birmingham
• Manchester Metropolitan
• University College London and Dundee

ADMISSION will use data from routinely-collected hospital, primary and social care records.  Using cutting-edge data science and other techniques it will identify clusters of long-term conditions and examine inequalities, their biological causes, and consequences.

Find out more on the ADMISSION website, and follow the project on Twitter @AdmissionCollab.

Our theme members are drawn from a diverse group of researchers and clinicians from Newcastle. They represent a wide range of disciplines, from across the Medical Faculty. Principal Investigators within our theme include: