HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au
Professor of Nursing at UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), Professor Lynn Chenoweth, has been awarded $536,000 as one of five World Class Research Project Grants by the Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration (DCRC).
Her project will address the fact that hospital care of people living with dementia is complicated and challenges staff to meet the needs of each individual.
Professor Chenoweth, who is also Adjunct Professor in the School of Nursing, University of Notre Dame Australia and School of Nursing, Macau, China, says that “people living with dementia can have particularly difficult experiences including agitation, delirium and falls, in busy and unfamiliar hospital environments.
“These experiences are worsened by staff’s inability to engage therapeutically during care,” says Professor Chenoweth.
Our project will address these issues by building capacity among healthcare staff to implement person-centred care, therapy and treatment in sub-acute care.
Professor Lynn Chenoweth
The person-centred ‘model’ has been proven feasible and beneficial for people living with dementia in a pilot trial conducted by the project team in acute care.
“By adjusting policy and practice environments, through staff education and support, stakeholder ownership of change, ongoing consultation with stakeholders and responsive adaptation of project plans/procedures we can institute essential change,” says Professor Chenoweth.
From a total funding pool of $1.8 million, each of DCRC grant awardees will undertake trials and studies to produce evidence interventions, promote practice change and inform policy. These grants are highly competitive and sought after in the research sector, and provide vital insights into reducing dementia risk, improving accurate and timely diagnoses and establishing treatment and care options for people who live with dementia.
In making this announcement, DCRC Directors, Professors Kaarin Anstey, Elizabeth Beattie and Henry Brodaty congratulate the recipients on their outstanding proposals and thank all applicants.
For details on all successful applications: https://dementiaresearch.org.au/news/world-class-research-grants/
