New funding for dementia research

The group has received more than £285,000 to increase the number of researchers and future leaders in dementia care research from nursing and allied health professional backgrounds.

 

Anne Rogers, Research Director for CLAHRC Wessex and Professor of Health Systems Implementation at the University of Southampton, comments: “We are thrilled to receive this funding which will help us add to the ongoing dementia and ageing research. It will enhance our capacity to look at greater depth into the themes of fundamentals of care, the complexity at End-of-Life and engaging communities of support, including those with dementia. We would like to thank Dr Jackie Bridges who led our funding bid.”

 

The funding will allow CLAHRC Wessex to set up the Research Capacity in Dementia Care Pilot Programme, which will include three doctoral projects to focus on areas of health care practice known to have a significant impact on the experiences and outcomes for people with dementia.

 

The first project will focus on the development and feasibility of an intervention to assist family carers in promoting and maintaining nutrition and hydration for people with dementia. The second will assess the feasibility of implementing and evaluating a compassionate care intervention for health care teams working with people with dementia, while the third will explore better ways of managing continence of older people living with dementia in their own homes.

 

Each doctoral student will have a clinical dimension to their role, spending up to 40 per cent of their time in clinical practice, optimising the relevance of the research to delivery of services, and enhancing the influence of research evidence on health care.