Dr Elsa Dent

Research interests

I am a gerontologist, exercise physiologist, and Associate Professor at the Institute of Evidence-Based Health at Bond University. I am a former NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow (2016-2021) and hold a PhD in Medicine from the University of Adelaide (2013). My research focuses on improving evidence-based practice in geriatric medicine, particularly for frailty, malnutrition, heart failure, falls and sarcopenia (accelerated muscle mass and strength loss). I am also keenly interested in health service research, including improved service delivery for older adults.

My research includes 11 sets of Clinical Practice Guidelines (3 as first author), and two first-author Lancet Publications –Malnutrition in Older Adults (2023); and Management of Frailty (2019). I have received over 80 policy citations, including by the World Health Organization’s guidelines for musculoskeletal conditions and the EU guidelines for Emergency Medicine. My Clinical Practice Guidelines on frailty have been incorporated into the Royal Australian Australian College General Practitioners’ Red Book (10th edition, 2024) and adopted into Australian clinical pathways, including HealthPathways in both Qld and SA.

I have received > $9.5 million in research funding. I am currently a Chief Investigator on several projects including an NHMRC-AMED funded trial testing a disease management program for high-risk patients with heart failure and cognitive impairment (CIA Dr Quan Huynh), a MRFF Dementia Ageing and Aged Care funded project involving older adults in policy discussions about medical screening (CIA Rachel Ambagtsheer) and HCF Research Translation funded project investigating the implementation of frailty screening and management in Australian primary care (CIA Caroline Nicholson).