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2025 CHNF Award of ASIA
Congratulations to Angella Gardener, a Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) at the internationally renowned Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center (Rancho), named as recipient of the 2025 Craig H. Neilsen Foundation Allied Health Professional Research Award of ASIA.
Gardener will receive $30,000 to fund her study, “Enhancing Respiratory Outcomes in Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot Study of Respiratory Muscle Training and Serial Forced Vital Capacity Measurements”
The Craig H. Neilsen Foundation Allied Health Professional Research Award of ASIA* is to encourage clinicians with an interest in research, but who have limited experience in research thus far in their career – fostering the transition of the applicant from a clinician into becoming a researcher.
Angella Gardener has served in spinal cord rehabilitation for over 12 years and currently serves as a PTA in the Pathokinesiology Lab and Rancho Research Institute. She has earned a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership, a Bachelor of Science in Health Science and an associate in science as a Physical Therapist Assistant. She also served as a clinical instructor for physical therapist assistant students and a Basic Life Support Instructor. Throughout her career, she has observed the respiratory challenges that many individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) face, and the effect this can have on their physical and psychosocial health and wellbeing. To help address this, she restructured the respiratory muscle training (RMT) program on the spinal cord injury service and facilitated respiratory muscle training groups at Rancho. Beyond Rancho, she developed and taught an RMT continuing education course for the Long Beach/South Bay California Physical Therapy Association district entitled Serial Monitoring of Forced Vital Capacity in Respiratory Muscle Training Can Detect Medical Distress. This course was also taught at Rancho’s Nursing Research Conference.
She presented an education series to the physical therapy (PT) department at Rancho on RMT, measuring vital capacity and interpreting data. Based on these findings, vital capacity measurement has been implemented in the patients’ plan of care upon admission to the inpatient rehabilitation unit. She also presented a poster titled Serial Monitoring of Forced Vital Capacity in Respiratory Muscle Training Can Detect Emerging Medical Distress at the 2025 American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting in Houston, Texas. In addition, she dedicates a significant portion of her free time to helping children in underserved communities.
Gardener will be awarded the 2025 Craig H. Neilsen Foundation Allied Health Professional Research Award of ASIA during the upcoming ASIA Annual Scientific Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ.
*Funding provided by the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation
Applications for the 2026 Craig H. Neilsen Foundation Allied Health Professional Research Award of ASIA* will be accepted in the fall of 2025!
