Current Research Projects

Ethnocultural and Linguistic Influences on Communication between Staff and Residents in Long-term Care

  • Principal Investigator(s): J. Small
  • Co-Investigator(s): E. Drance, J. Globerman, W. Hulko, D. O’Connor, J. Perry, L. Stern

Awards / Funding

  • B.C. Medical Services Foundation (BCMSF) - $25,000 (2006-2008)

Meaningful Activity from the Perspective of Persons with Dementia

  • Principal Investigator(s): Alison Phinney
  • Co-Investigator(s): Habib Chauhury, Deborah O’Connor

Awards / Funding

  • CIHR Operating Grant (2006)

Ethnic Minority Seniors in Care (EMSIC)

  • Principal Investigator(s): Sharon Koehn
  • Co-Investigator(s): Habib Chaudhury, Elisabeth Drance, Romayne Gallagher, Al Hendricks, Jean Kozak, Dora Replanski, Jim Sands, Charmaine Spencer, Elizabeth Stanger. Ann Vanderbijl, Susan Poshan Wong

Awards / Funding

  • BCNAR Seed Grant, Team Development - $3,500 (2005)

Support Services, Personhood and Dementia Care: Exploring the Interface

  • Principal Investigator(s): Deborah O’Connor
  • Co-Investigator(s): Alison Phinney, Wendy Hulko, Martha Donnelly

The purpose of this research is to develop a contextualized, holistic understanding of how individuals with dementia and their family members perceive and interact with the formal support system. Formal community and health support services have been developed to help maximize functional autonomy and quality of life of persons with dementia and their families in order to enable the person with dementia to remain safely and comfortably in the community for as long as possible. However, research indicates that these supports services are often underutilized and / or used ineffectively.

Our objectives are to:

  • Describe how decisions about the use of formal supports services are made and enacted within the person-with dementia / family or significant other context
  • Identify how issues associated with the personhood of the individual with dementia, and the social location of the family, influence their experiences and interactions
  • Identify how organisational practices and policies support or impede the effective interface between the family and formal support systems

Awards / Funding

  • Alzheimer Society of Canada (ASC), Canadian Nurses Foundation (CNF), Nursing Care Partnership (NCP), Institute of Aging (IA) and Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) (2005)

Researching Personhood in Dementia: Investigating Measurement Issues

  • Principal Investigator(s): D. O’Connor
  • Co-Investigator(s): J. Small, A. Phinney, M. Donnelly, B. Purves, E. Drance, P. Graf, A. Smith

Awards / Funding

  • CIHR - International Opportunity Program (2005)

Social Interactions and Everyday Activities of Persons with Dementia

  • Principal Investigator(s): A. Phinney
  • Co-Investigator(s): D. O’Connor, H. Chaudhury

The purpose of this research is to find out how people recently diagnosed with dementia take part in activities and social interactions in their everyday lives. By interviewing and observing people and their families in their home environment we hope to determine the following:

  • What are the changing patterns of involvement in social and everyday activities by persons with dementia
  • How do families influence these social and everyday involvements
  • What is the the impact of changing involvements on how persons with dementia perceive their quality of life and their sense of identity and autonomy

The findings from this research will identify what types of activities are most meaningful to persons with dementia, and how families and care partners can best support persons with dementia so they can still take part in the activities that are most signficant in their day to day lives.

Awards / Funding

  • SSHRC (2005)

Reliability and Validity Testing of the Perception of Conversation Index: Dementia of the Alzheimer Type (PCI-DAT)

  • Principal Investigator(s): J.B. Orange, R. Lubinski
  • Co-Investigator(s): Barbara Purves, A. Johnson, JoAnn Perry, Jeff Small

The purpose of this study is to determine the reliability and validity of an evaluative, self-report questionnaire for family caregivers of individuals with DAT, termed the Perception of Conversation Index – dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (PCI-DAT). The purpose of the n=74 item PCI-DAT is to help clinicians identify strategies that will resolve communication problems and, in turn, lessen communication related caregiver stress. The PCI-DAT stems from the literature showing that: (a) family members frequently are the first to recognize communication problems in relatives with dementia (Bayles & Tomoeda, 1991; Ory et al., 1985), (b) there is a critical need for research on family members’ perception of and response to symptoms of dementia (Ory et al., 1985), and (c) family members’ perceptions are critical to understand caregiver stress (Poulshock et al., 1984).

Awards / Funding

  • Alzheimer Society of Canada, Canadian Nurses Foundation, Canadian Health Services Research Foundation

An Interpretive Phenomenological Study of the Body in Dementia

  • Principal Investigator(s): Alison Phinney

Increasing scientific interest in dementia has resulted in a vast clinical research literature that characterises the condition in terms of its cognitive and behavioural pathology. However, findings have been based largely on observations made by caregivers or clinicians, and as a result little is known about the experiences of patients themselves. I have recently conducted research that examined the question of how people with dementia perceive and understand their symptoms. A prominent finding was revealed in people’s reports of how they were experiencing their bodies changing. Bodies that had before been almost invisible and taken-for-granted were becoming obtrusive and unreliable in particular ways. In order to build upon these findings, I am proposing to pursue further work exploring the meaning and significance of dementia symptoms as they are experienced in and through the lived body as it is engaged in everyday activity. This work will entail conducting a review of existing literature and gathering preliminary qualitative data using tape-recorded interviews and observations of people with mild to moderate dementia. Interpretive phenomenological analysis of these data will provide the basis for the development of a more comprehensive funding proposal to conduct research examining these questions in greater depth.

Awards / Funding

  • HSS Hampton Fund (December 2001 - March 2003)

An Interpretive Study of the Lived Body in Alzheimer Disease

  • Principal Investigator(s): Alison Phinney

Considerable research has been conducted to define the clinical presentation of Alzheimer disease, to identify stages of decline and describe patterns of cognitive deterioration and behavioural symptoms. However, relatively little is known about how the person with AD lives day to day with this illness and the meaning it has for them. To address this question, one might ask people to reflect on and describe their experiences. However, this approach may well exclude accounts of the many ordinary experiences that constitute everyday life, whose meanings are taken-for-granted and deeply implicit to the point where they may be all but impossible to articulate. To gain access to these everyday experiences, it is necessary to broaden the focus of inquiry to include not only the thoughts and feelings of the person with Alzheimer’s disease, but also the habits and skills of the dementing body as it is caught up in the world of meaningful activity. This interpretive phenomenological study explores how the body conveys the meaning of living with Alzheimer’s disease (1) through its movement and expression; (2) through its skilled involvement in everyday habits and practices; and (3) through its interactions with others. Data are being collected through video-taped observations of everyday activities and narrative interviews conducted with people who have mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and their family members.

Awards / Funding

  • Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, Institute of Aging (CIHR), Alzheimer’s Society of Saskatchewan (April 1, 2002 - March 31, 2004)

Addressing Distinct Housing Needs

  • Principal Investigator(s): Habib Chaudhury, Atiya Mahmood, Karen Kobayashi

Awards / Funding

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation - $24,925 (August, 2003 - January, 2005)

Aging and Health Research Centre

  • Principal Investigator(s): W. Hulko
  • Co-Investigator(s): D. Daines, N. McBlane

The intent of this project is to establish a research centre on aging and health that can serve as a focal point for aging related research in the Central Interior. The objectives are:

  • To increase the research capacity of TRU with respect to older people, the aging process, and the social and biological determinants of health
  • To develop aging and health research proposals that particularly focus on small cities, rural and remote areas, and First Nations communities
  • To disseminate research findings in order to raise awareness of the work of TRU, influence policy and practice, and inform the wider community about aging and health issues
  • To engage in inter-provincial and cross-national research collaborations that focus on the linkages between local and global issues

Awards / Funding

  • SSHRC - Aid to Small Universities (2005 - 2008)

Living with Early Alzheimer Disease

  • Principal Investigator(s): Alison Phinney

Increasing scientific interest in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has resulted in a vast literature characterising the disease in biomedical terms according to its physiological and behavioural pathology. However, in all of this research, the experience of the patient has been largely overlooked. Little is known about the disease from the perspective of the patient, since findings have been based largely on the observations of caregivers or clinicians. The proposed qualitative study uses participant observation and semi-structured interviews with people in the mild to moderate stages of AD in order to answer the following questions: (1) How do people with AD understand the illness and its symptoms? (2) How do people with AD experience their lives changing? and (3) How do they cope with these changes? People with AD and their spouses will be interviewed on four occasions, and observed in their homes on three occasions. Field notes and verbatim interview data from transcribed audio-tapes will be analyzed using techniques of interpretive analysis. Findings are anticipated to be of interest to both clinicians and researchers who are concerned with better understanding how people with AD understand and cope with their illness.

Awards / Funding

  • Neuroscience Nursing Foundation (January 1998 - January 1999)

Exploring the Experiences of Japanese Canadian Family Members Caring for a Relative with Dementia

  • Principal Investigator(s): JoAnn Perry
  • Co-Investigator(s): Deborah O’Connor, Karen Kobayashi

Culture and ethnicity remain underrepresented in the caregiving research in spite of the awareness that such social organizations can inhibit or facilitate adaptations to caregiving. The goal of this study was to explore the experience of caregiving to kin who have Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) or a related dementia, in Japanese Canadian families living in British Columbia. The sample consists of 9 daughters, 5 wives, 5 sons and 1 grandson. Some participants were interviewed more than once to obtain a total of 30 interviews, all of which were tape recorded and transcribed. The preliminary analysis generated 6 major codes and 13 subcodes that were subsequently refined and explored for central themes and relationships. For example, our answer to the question of how the immigrant experience influences the construction of dementia is framed in terms of the extent to which the family group views themselves as being predominately Japanese and adhering to the “traditional values”, in contrast to viewing themselves as predominately Canadian and adopting current Canadian values. Tensions between these orientations within a family could include the desire to keep the experience within the family and draw sustenance from the family network, or the view that dementia is a common occurrence and caregivers should seek assistance from the larger community.

Collaborative Mental Health Care Implementation Strategy

  • Principal Investigator(s): Martha Donnelly, Nick Kates

Awards / Funding

  • Canadian Collaborative Mental Health Initiative - $273,000 (2004 / 2005)

Developing an Intervention Model to Promote Socialization for People with Dementia Who Reside in Long Term Care

  • Principal Investigator(s): Jo Ann Perry
  • Co-Investigator(s): Jeff Small, Joan Bottorff

There has been little research on how to best provide people with dementia with satisfying interactions with their care providers in long term care facilities. From earlier studies by the researchers several strategies that facilitated social interactions were identified. These strategies were combined to form a beginning intervention model. Refinement of this model is needed to prepare it for use in facilities. The goals of this study are to refine the intervention model and develop ways of putting it into practice. Focus group interviews are being conducted with nurses and other health care workers in extended care units and special care units throughout the province of British Columbia. We are also interviewing individuals in leadership positions in long-term facilities, family members and other health care professionals to gain further insight into the usefulness of the intervention model. This study will further provide direction regarding how to put into action an intervention model of strategies aimed at helping people with dementia stay more connected with their family members, friends, and staff.

Exploring the Impact of Family Support Groups

  • Principal Investigator(s): Deborah O’Connor, JoAnn Perry, Karen Kobayashi

Awards / Funding

  • SSHRC

Memories of “Home” as a Resource for Reminiscence Activities in Dementia Care

  • Principal Investigator(s): Habib Chaudhury

This project focuses on an important, though neglected domain in dementia care, namely the utilization of memories of personally meaningful homes (e.g., childhood home, neighbourhood, hometown) in reminiscence sessions for residents with dementia in long-term care settings. The objectives of the project are: (a) explore potential therapeutic benefits of “home” oriented reminiscence as an activity with residents with dementia; (b) identify home related verbal as well as visual prompts to trigger recollection of past life experiences; (c) develop strategies and guidelines for activity staff in dementia care facilities for conducting reminiscence sessions using home related themes.

Awards / Funding

  • Social Science Humanities Research Council Institutional Small Grant - $6,161 (September, 2003 - December, 2004)

Communication Intervention for Family Caregivers of Persons with Alzheimer Disease: A Pilot Study

  • Principal Investigator(s): Jeff Small, JoAnn Perry, J. Bottorff

The overall objective of the this program of research is to improve communication and the quality of life for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and those with whom they interact. This long-term objective will be achieved by developing, implementing, and assessing the outcomes of a communication intervention for caregivers of persons with AD. The TRACED intervention consists of an empirically based multi-faceted protocol that incorporates both linguistic and person-centered approaches to communication in four education and training sessions. The outcome measures include interviews and questionnaires that address the caregivers’ perceptions of strategy use, and both the caregivers’ and spouses’ perceptions of the quality of their communication, the functional abilities of the person with AD, and the psychosocial well-being of each. The quality of communication is also being examined by analyzing recorded observations of caregivers interacting with their spouses. This program of research is being carried out in two phases: first, we are currently in the process of pre-testing and refining the intervention and research protocols, and second, we plan to implement and measure the outcomes of the intervention using experimental and control groups (in a follow-up randomized control trial).

Awards / Funding

  • Alzheimer Society of Canada, Canadian Nurses Foundation, Canadian Health Services Research Foundation