Research interests
Professor Lindley’s research interests broadly include geriatric medicine, general medicine, frailty and stroke. “Personalised medicine is less applicable in geriatrics”, he says. “After enduring an onslaught of environmental challenges for 80 or more years, genetics begins to play a lesser role. Additionally, medical advances have raised an important challenge in the field of geriatrics.

Current projects include an inception cohort study of older people investigating the influence of frailty of important outcomes such as dementia. Professor Lindley was a chief investigator of AVERT, a large international clinical trial that found that very early and frequent out-of-bed mobility was not effective immediately after stroke, despite many guidelines recommending such intervention. Professor Lindley also led the ATTEND trial, a multicentre, randomised controlled, blinded outcome-assessor trial conducted in India. In a country where stroke rehabilitation units are uncommon and where there exists a joint family system, the study aimed to determine whether stroke recovery at home given by a trained family member was an effective, affordable strategy for those with disabling stroke, compared to usual care. The results of this trial demonstrated that this approach was not successful in improving independent outcome - a result that has major implications for cost-shifting complex interventions.

His research is based at Blacktown Hospital, Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC), University of Sydney and the George Institute for Global Health.