Lena von Koch and Björn Klinge receives the silver medal 2019
This year's silver medals are awarded to senior professors Lena von Koch and Björn Klinge. The medal is awarded to a person who has made excellent efforts to support the activities of Karolinska Institutet. The medals are awarded in conjunction with the ceremony for Diligence and Devotion.
Lena von Koch, senior professor of health research, is awarded the medal for particularly good efforts in the development of education and research in health care science.
In her research, Lena von Koch has focused in particular on measures to provide patients with co-creation and responsibility for their own post-stroke rehabilitation, and has developed and evaluated measures to increase participation in the daily and community life of persons with neurological disabilities and their relatives.
Post-stroke rehabilitation support
Her research group has worked both nationally and internationally and has conducted intervention studies in both high-income countries like Sweden, and in several low-income countries in Africa. There, among other things, her research group has developed and conducted studies that show that post-stroke rehabilitation support using simple mobile phone technology has a good effect.
At KI, Lena von Koch has shown a great commitment to education and has developed courses on both undergraduate and graduate level. She has held several management assignments and, as an authority in her subject area "Development and evaluation of rehabilitation measures for persons with neurological functional variations", has held many assessment assignments both nationally and internationally.
Collaboration between dental medicine and medicine
Björn Klinge, senior professor of dentistry, is awarded the medal for his long-standing work on increasing the understanding of the importance of oral health for the well-being of the body. His hard work in making "the mouth a part of the body" is a particularly good contribution for KI and for dental care in general.
During his time as head of the department of dental medicine, Björn built up a collaboration between dental and medical research groups, which has contributed to the fact that dentistry at KI now has a well-developed collaboration with medical research groups, which also marks KI's dental research at national level.
Björn Klinge has also participated in a number of governmental agencies and investigations and has been very active internationally.
His greatest contribution, however, is as a people educator in dental health issues. By participating in "Question the Doctor" TV4's dental week in "Malou after ten", among other things, he has become one of Sweden's "national dentists".