I’ve been awarded a HEA grant to run a one day workshop at Bournemouth University on ‘Smart futures: practical use of technology in psychology learning and teaching’ on 2nd July 2013. Although focussing on psychology, some sessions may also be useful to those from other related disciplines wanting to develop their practice in using technology to enhance their students’ experience. I will be presenting my own research and reflecting on my practice. Other speakers include Dr M Coxon (York St Johns) on ‘Tweeting, Twittering and Twitterdom’ and Dr C Senior (Aston) on ‘Technology and Student Teams in Learning’. Bookings are open at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2013/02-July-Smart-futures-Bournemouth
Category / Psychology
Fusion Diary: High-Speed Train to China Universities
7:55am, 14th April.
BA168 landed in Shanghai Pudong International Airport. I was sponsored by Santander Fusion Investment Fund and would visit 4 top China Universities in five days. In order to board a high-speed train to Beijing, I only had five hours to have a shower, unpack my luggage, eat a Chinese lunch and then drive through Shanghai, a metropolitan city with a population of 20- million. The distance is less than that from Bournemouth to Brockenhurst. The traffic is as same as Oxford circus and Regent Street.
Mission nearly impossible. But I made it. With the help of a Chinese high-speed train, I travelled 914 miles in less than 6 hours and arrived in Beijing in time. Efficient trains like these can also be built in other countries with the help of a third rail train equipment manufacturer and many other engineers and contractors.
Next morning, I visited Renmin University, a Chinese equivalent to LSE, and gave a talk in the Psychology Department. Remin’s Psychology Department, established in 2008, is a fast-paced booming institute and has 30 staff members in total, similar in size to BU Psychology. Internationalisation was a highly frequent word I picked up from our conversation. During my talk, I showed them the photos of Bournemouth University with beach and sunshine as well as telling about our research and courses. I met Prof Du Peng (his surname first in the Chinese way), the university research director, and Prof Hu Ping, the deputy head of Psychology Department. The discussion was successful and fruitful. and afterwards, in accordance with tradition, they hosted me a delicious Chinese lunch dinner, rather than the usual sandwiches and tea that we might have here.
After saying blesses and goodbye to my kind hosts, I walked back to Peking University. Before moving to England I had spent eight years in Peking University. This was the second time I came back in the last ten years. I wandered on the campus which was crowded with classical Chinese architectures and modern cars. There was no meeting arranged for me this time but it was lovely to be back visiting my old haunts. and to meet with old friends, all of whom have previously studied or worked in the UK. In Chinese they are called haigui, which means coming back from overseas. It is interesting that most of them are working in universities and public sector now.
My next journey on another high speed train meant travelling about 750 miles in 6 hours to Xian, the ancient Chinese capital in Han and Tang dynasties. Since I last visited as a teenager the city has been expanding faster and more massively than I could ever have imagined. Again, it was a great opportunity to catch up with older friends before visiting Shaanxi Normal University, a prestigious national university. I was welcome by Prof Wang Yong Hui. Prof Wang is the Deputy Head of Psychology School. We have been friends since we studied in Beijing. Now we had the opportunity to share what we have done in each other’s research areas over the years.
To be continued…..
The new Dorset APP: Dorset Alliance to Prevent falls and Promote independence
With Osteoporosis Dorset, BU has recently set up a forum that brings together local professionals and representatives of older people with an interest in the prevention of falls. Dorset Alliance to Prevent falls and Promote independence (Dorset APP) is an initiative led by Samuel Nyman as part of his research in this area. Membership of the alliance is growing, but to date there are 24 members including representatives of all the local hospitals, Age UK Bournemouth, Age UK Dorchester, the University of the Third Age (Bournemouth branch), Bournemouth Older People’s Forum, Dorset Partnership for Older People Programme, among others. The alliance will be working together to enhance information sharing and generation of new ideas as to prevent falls and hip fractures in the Dorset region; similar to the alliance initiated by the National Osteoporosis Society and Age UK at the national level.
Dorset APP was launched at a conference in Bournemouth hosted by Osteoporosis Dorset on the 1st of May. The conference, “A positive approach to preventing falls and broken hips in care homes”, included a presentation by Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) members Sue Barker and Samuel Nyman on the prevention of falls among older people with dementia. There was a lot of interest about the alliance on the day and in the first meeting of the alliance to be held at BU within a few weeks.
More information about Dorset APP can be found on BU’s news page: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/newsandevents/News/2013/may/ne04-bu-helps-launch-dorset-falls-alliance.html
Samuel Nyman
BUDI and Psychology Research Centre
Yawning in France
My recent visit to Paris via the Erasmus Teaching Mobility scheme has been most useful, not only as it continues to strengthen the links I have made with like-minded researchers and clinicians, but also because it exposes you to raw student talent. This is important to help you keep up to date with current views and research with the assistance of an eager and interrogative French audience! Such visits are quite intellectually challenging, partly because my level of French is constantly under scrutiny! The collaborative research links I have made are invaluable and I hope to submit some reasrch bids in the area of Multiple Sclerosis and yawning soon.
BPS Wessex Student Conference
On Saturday, Bournemouth University hosted the Wessex Branch of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Annual Student Conference. This event provided an opportunity for students to showcase novel research and, in addition to BU, attracted Psychology students from a range of institutions (e.g. Universities of Surrey, Sussex, Winchester, and Southampton). The breadth of institution was matched by the breadth of student; with undergraduate research assistants through to doctoral students presenting their work to an audience of approximately 100 delegates.
In total, there were 28 oral presentations and 19 research posters. In addition, we were fortunate to have two thought-provoking keynote speakers. First, Dr. Richard Stephens (Keele University) spoke about the role of swearing on pain tolerance (in short, it helps, particularly if you are normally an infrequent user of coarse vocabulary) and, second, Prof. Clare Wood (Coventry University) delivered a presentation on the effects of text messaging on literacy (in sum, ‘textisms’ are not rotting the brains of our nation’s youth).
The conference sought to emphasise that, rather than a perfunctory assessment exercise, student research is an important part of knowledge creation within our universities. Whilst this was highlighted by the collaborative (student-academic) nature of the projects, it was also evident how the presenters had developed into independent researchers. This apprenticeship model is one employed by the Bournemouth Psychology Research Centre and it was pleasing to see a number of our Year 2 Psychology students presenting data that had arisen from their research assistant placements. There was a large contingent of first and second year BU Psychology students in the audience and helping with conference organisation as volunteers. We hope that they have been inspired to participate in more staff projects and will return next year to present their research.
Special Environmental Change & Biodiversity Research Theme Seminar
Dr Jan Wiener from DEC Psychology will be giving a thought-provoking seminar entitled “From Foraging to Wayfinding: Human Navigation Strategies in Real and Virtual Environments”.
11am Wednesday 24th April in CAG02
All are welcome to attend – refreshments will be provided.
State of Yawning – Santander Travel Scholarship awarded to Dr Simon Thompson
Studying yawning has the potentially benefit of identifying underlying neurological disorders. Strong evidence of a link between yawning and fatigue, and with multiple sclerosis, is known. Mechanisms involved in excessive yawning are not understood and my work has shown a definitive link between yawning and cortisol levels in normal people. However, since people with multiple sclerosis often yawn excessively, it is important to establish whether or not their cortisol levels rise as with normal people since prolonged rises in cortisol levels indicate stress and may also indicate adverse neurological symptomatology. My work has generated a new hypothesis to explain the occurrence of excessive yawning and is complementary to Dr Gallup’s theories on thermoregulation in multiple sclerosis, which is pioneering. I am meeting Dr Gallup (Princeton University) in New York to discuss further studies in order to stay ahead of research progress. This is an excellent opportunity for kudos for Bournemouth University in being the first to carry out such research.
Face Blindness Public Awareness Campaign Gets Underway!
Research from BU’s Centre for Face Processing Disorders was featured in a CBBC documentary today. The film was entitled ‘My life: Who are you?’ and followed the journey of Hannah, a teenager with face blindness, as she participated in one of our training programmes and discusses the difficulties of everyday life. The documentary also featured Hannah meeting another girl with face blindness for the first time, and her encounter with Duncan Bannatyne who also has the condition.
We are so pleased with the documentary, and felt the producers did an excellent job in portraying the condition with scientific accuracy, and in demonstrating the difficulties associated with face blindness. Despite Hannah’s struggles she still maintains a positive attitude to life and the film does an excellent job of presenting her as the remarkable young lady that she is, who was so keen to make the film in order to raise public awareness of the condition. Hannah’s story illustrates how life can be affected by brain injury, but her remarkable positivity shines through as the programme follows her journey.
If you missed the programme you can watch it here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbbc/episode/b01rlyc9/My_Life_Who_Are_You/
We recently launched an e-petition that aims to promote public and professional awareness of prosopagnosia by campaigning for its discussion in the House of Commons. We need to gain 100,000 signatures to make this happen, so if you were moved by the documentary, please do add your signature:
http://www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org/awareness/e-petition
Our public awareness campaign has only just taken off so watch this space for more activities!
Dr Andrew Mayers’ research on children’s sleep receives excellent media coverage
Throughout November, the work that Dr Andrew Mayers (a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, in the school of Design, Engineering and Computing) has been doing with children’s sleep has been receiving a great deal of attention on national television and on national and local radio. Over the last few years, Andrew has been running a series of sleep workshops with parents, in a unique partnership with Winton Primary School and Barnardo’s Bournemouth Children’s Centres. Over that time, there have been several reports in the local press about the work, but it is only in the last six months that this has received national attention, starting in July with articles in the Times Educational Supplement (TES: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6264998) and Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180003/Parents-offered-child-sleep-classes-pupils-turn-lessons-tired.html) and a live interview with Talk Radio Europe (http://www.talkradioeurope.com/clients/amayers.mp3). However, it is this last month that the attention has become more intense, with two features on national television and four live interviews on BBC radio (including one session at 12.30am!).
ITV Daybreak, November 1st: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd_OaMieSks
BBC Radio 5 Live, Drive show, November 16th http://www.andrewmayers.info/Radio5Nov162012.mp3
BBC Radio 5 Live, Tony Livesey late night show, November 21st http://www.andrewmayers.info/Radio5Nov212012.mp3
BBC1 Breakfast/BBC News Channel, November 21st http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20423289
BBC Radio Sheffield, November 21st http://www.andrewmayers.info/RadioSheffieldNov212012.mp3
BBC Radio Solent, November 21st http://www.andrewmayers.info/RadioSolentNov212012.mp3
Andrew has been reflecting on these experiences. He said “I am extremely grateful for the incredibly hard work put in to these workshops by Pat Bate at Winton Primary School and Patrick Ives at Barnardo’s – without them this would not have happened. It is also testimony to the effectiveness of a good personal web page. Much of the initial media attention came about because a journalist was conducting research online about children’s sleep, and found my web page. The rest is history!”
Andrew’s website can be found at: www.andrewmayers.info
Andrew also said “Once a website like this is established, it is important to keep it updated, especially when there is a chance of media attention. A few days after the BBC features, I noticed that visits to my website increased six-fold in the first day, and is still well above normal levels of traffic. As a result of the media attention and increased web site visits, I have established several potentially very lucrative new partnerships with leading academics in the field, some with a very high profile media presence. I also received support and requests for collaboration with several educational psychologists and other professionals across the UK”.
Engaging students: The Research Apprenticeship Summer Scheme in the Psychology Research Centre
In the last round of applications to the Fusion Investment Fund Dr Ben Parris, Dr Sarah Bate and Professor Sine McDougall from the Psychology Research Centre applied for, and were awarded, funds to pay for five summer placement positions that enabled our most promising students to gain a greater insight into life as researchers on a full-time basis. For a period of 9 weeks the students became part of one of the research laboratories in Psychology. The students were responsible for experiment preparation, data collection, and data preparation and joined in lab discussions. Three RA positions were open calls; two were allied to REF impact case studies. All 2nd year students were invited to apply for the positions. Linking in with the employability strand on the undergraduate course the students were asked to provide an up-to-date CV and a 500-word summary on how the summer placement scheme would benefit them in their future career. The five selected candidates were housed in P106, which was converted into dedicated office space where the RAs could base themselves over the summer period and interact with each other and with postgraduate students and members of staff.
The scheme had a large impact on research. The five students on the scheme contributed to literature reviews, data collection, experiment programming and lab discussions for several members of staff in the Psychology Research Centre. Whilst they were each allied to a particular member of staff, others in the Centre sought their help when there was a bit of down time on the main project on which they were working. Whilst it is too early to list research outputs that have benefitted from this scheme, clearly the data collected, the literature reviewed, and the experiments programmed have all contributed towards the research goals of members of the Psychology Research Centre. Overall, data from over 200 participants were collected at a time when it is particularly difficult to recruit and test participants. Moreover, given that the scheme represents effective training for those seeking a career in academia, the full-time positions gave students the opportunity to engage in professional practice. Furthermore, by allying two positions with impact case studies the scheme involved their engagement with bodies external to the university (e.g. Poole Hospital).
Feedback from the students themselves provides useful insight into the utility of the scheme to them. All students reported great satisfaction with the scheme, having learned how to conduct a piece of research properly. They report having learned useful technical skills that they can apply to their final year projects. Most importantly they report direct benefits for their final year of study. Not only have they used their time wisely in thinking about the project which forms a large part of their final year (and degree as a whole) but the students reported that one of the biggest benefits was improvements in article reading skills. Two of the students commented how extra reading for lectures now seems a lot easier; they can now read and extract important information in half the time. This has enabled them to explore a much broader range of papers, which has increased their understanding of Psychology. One student wrote ‘My general understanding of Psychology has been greatly improved, igniting a much stronger passion for the subject than I have ever felt before and the impact that this has had on my University work is extremely valuable to me’. Another wrote ‘Since starting back in term one, I have found that reading journal articles has become an easier process for me. I am now able to look at any article from any topic area and understand more fully what I’m reading, and where to go to find the information that is relevant for the task at hand’. As a final example, one of this year’s RAs wrote ‘The opportunity to continue to study, conduct research and become more familiar with programs such as SPSS throughout the summer means that the return to the final year is considerably less daunting and I feel more confident about designing and conducting my own study’.
A final important consequence of this scheme neatly highlights one of the benefits of fusion. Admittedly an unintended consequence of the scheme, engaging potential researchers of the future had the consequence of making researchers of the present feeling somewhat trapped in the past. One of the apprentices took it upon himself to introduce us to the potential of Twitter and Facebook for participant recruitment. This has now been incorporated into our participant recruitment strategy. The Facebook site attracted 80 ‘likes’ within a few days (I believe that number is now much higher) and has since been used to recruit participants. This will increase the efficiency with which all members of the Psychology Research Centre complete research. In short, the masters became the apprentices.
New wave of PhD students in the Psychology Research Centre
The postgraduate research community in Psychology has been growing over recent years in line with our expansion of staff and undergraduate students. We now have 17 PhD students in the research centre as we recently welcomed seven new students. We are pleased that our new PhD students have all received either studentships or scholarships to fund their work. These new research projects represent the disciplines of the psychology of health, cognition, and education, and highlight the varied application of psychology to advance both science and issues encountered in everyday life. We are really pleased to have these students join us and add to the research going on in Psychology. We have listed the students and their research interests below in case other members of staff have interests in common. If you do, and would like to find out more, please do contact the students or their supervisors.
Student | Supervisors | Funding | Title |
Natalia Adamczewska | Dr Samuel Nyman
Prof Jonathan Parker (HSC) Prof Peter Coleman (University of Southampton)
|
BU Vice-Chancellor fee-waive scholarship | Psychological adjustment to accidental falls. |
Anna Bobak | Dr Sarah Bate
Dr Ben Parris |
BU fully-funded studentship | Face facts: Why face processing skills should be improved in forensic and national security settings. |
Simon Ferneyhough | Dr Jane Elsley
Dr Andy Johnson |
BU fully-funded studentship | How does our ability to integrate objects and events change as we age? |
Abbey Laishley | Dr Julie Kirkby
Prof Simon Liversedge (UniversityofSouthampton)
|
BU fully-funded studentship | Quantifying the role of working memory in efficient classroom performance |
Jessica Miller | Dr Jan Wiener
Prof Siné McDougall
|
BU Vice-Chancellor fee-waive scholarship & funding from Army of Angels | PTSD and Navigation. |
Sophie Nicholls | Dr Sarah Bate
Dr Ben Parris |
BU Vice-Chancellor fee-waive scholarship | Effects of Stochastic Sub-sensory Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation on Speed and Accuracy of Face Recognition: An Application to National Security and Forensic Settings. |
Michele Salvagno | A/Prof Jacqui Taylor
Dr Milena Bobeva (BS) Dr Maggie Hutchings (HSC) |
BU fully-funded studentship (online education) | The Highs and Lows of Ubiquitous Mobile Connectivity: towards a model for pedagogical delivery that supports the well-being of learners |
Are we born to yawn?
Yawning consistently poses a conundrum to neurologists and neuroscientists. Increasingly, evidence is found to link neurological disorders through the commonality of yawning episodes and contagious yawning. Despite discrete incidences (such as parakinesia brachialis oscitans) in brain stem ischaemic stroke patients, there is considerable debate over the reasons for yawning, with the mechanism of yawning still not fully understood. Cortisol is implicated in the stress response and fatigue; repetitive yawning may be the link between neurological disorders and with a strong correlation between yawning and a rise in cortisol levels. Evidence has now been found in support of the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis that proposes cortisol levels are elevated during yawning [1]. Additional data is in press, and further research is planned with longitudinal consideration to neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and stroke. Funding for such initiatives is currently being sought.
[1] Thompson, S.B.N., & Bishop, P., 2012. Born to yawn? Understanding yawning as a warning of the rise in cortisol levels: randomized trial. Interactive Journal of Medical Research, 1(5), e4:1-9. Doi: i-www.jmr.org/2012/e4/
Members of BU’s Centre for Face Processing Disorders attend Prosopagnosia Open Day at Birkbeck
Last Friday saw the second annual ‘Prosopagnosia (Face blind) Open Day at Birkbeck, University of London. I was delighted to again receive an invitation to talk about my research at the event, along with Dr Kirsten Dalrymple (Dartmouth College, USA) and Professor Martin Eimer (Birkbeck, UK). However, the highlight of the day was listening to the stories and thoughts of the people with face blindness who attended the day. The public engagement event was designed to have an initial ‘closed session’ which was only accessible to people with face blindness and the researchers working with these people, whereas the media were invited in for an ‘open session’ in the afternoon. In the earlier session, us researchers were privileged to be offered a unique insight into the everyday experiences of people with face blindness, in addition to receiving their feedback about research participation and particular issues that we might like to explore further.
We heard some very emotional and sometimes heart-breaking first hand accounts of what it is like to live with face blindness, and all the delegates clearly took a lot away from the day. I also invited some other members of the Centre for Face Processing Disorders to accompany me to the event, and we all agreed the experience was invaluable for us as researchers. Here’s some reflections on the day from our group:
Dr Nicola Gregory (Postdoctoral Research Fellow):
“The main think I took away with me was the importance of remembering that when we as researchers engage with people with prosopagnosia we must always be mindful of the impact that this condition has on people’s lives. We may spend a lot of time reading about case studies in academic journals and thinking in terms of cognitive processes which may or may not be deficient, but meeting and chatting to people with prosopagnosia and hearing their stories was a wonderful reminder that ultimately prosopagnosia affects people, not just their cognitive functioning.”
Amanda Bussunt (final year BSc Psychology student completing her dissertation in the Centre for Face Processing Disorders):
BU’s Centre for Face Processing Disorders featured in the Daily Mail
An article about face blindness (prosopagnosia) in women appeared in the Daily Mail last week, with comments from Dr Sarah Bate of the Psychology Research Centre. Sarah recently launched the Centre for Face Processing Disorders at BU with support from the University’s Fusion Fund. Read the full article here.
Intranasal inhalation of oxytocin improves eye-witness identification: RDF grant report
In 2011 myself and Ben Parris from the Psychology Research Centre were awarded a small RDF grant to investigate whether intranasal inhalation of the hormone oxytocin can improve eye-witness identification. We designed an experiment where participants viewed a short video-clip of a perpetrator stealing a wallet from someone’s bag. Participants then inhaled either an oxytocin or placebo nasal spray, and after a 45 minute interval to allow central oxytocin levels to plateau, were presented with a line-up of ten faces from which they had to either select the perpetrator or state that he was absent. To date we have tested 70 participants and found a facilitation in the oxytocin condition. In a second experiment, we asked participants to complete the ‘One-in-Ten’ task, a test of spontaneous eye-witness memory that has been well-used in previous work. Again, we found a clear facilitation in performance in the oxytocin condition.
These findings follow recent work that has demonstrated that oxytocin can improve face recognition performance in standard cognitive tasks in lab-based settings. In addition, work from our lab is currently under review for publication demonstrating that oxytocin can improve face recognition in individuals with prosopagnosia (face blindness). This RDF grant has therefore given us the funding to carry out key investigations demonstrating novel applications of oxytocin inhalation in more applied settings.
I also presented findings from the oxytocin project at the April meeting of the Experimental Psychological Society, and was delighted to meet Dr Markus Bindemann from the University of Kent who is something of an expert in eye-witness identification. We are now collaborating with Markus, and have plans to develop a bid to the Leverhulme Trust on the back of the publications that we hope will result from these investigations. We are also about to welcome a new PhD student to our lab, who will be further developing the forensic aspect of this work in more real-world national security settings.
The pump-priming that was made available to us via the RDF scheme has provided us with the opportunity to collect the initial data and publication basis that we need to develop a large external bid, and we hope that this is the beginning of a fruitful line of research for our laboratory.
BU Centre for Face Processing Disorders featured in the Independent
Bournemouth University’s new Centre for Face Processing Disorders (supported by HEIF and Fusion funds) was recently featured in an article in the Independent newspaper, together with quotes from BU’s Dr Sarah Bate.
Sarah’s work to date has explored the cognitive presentation and treatment of face processing deficits in adults and children with a range of neuropsychological conditions, such as developmental or acquired prosopagnosia (face blindness), autistic spectrum disorder, and Moebius syndrome. The Face Centre was launched in response to the large amount of media attention generated by Sarah’s research. After Sarah’s work was featured in The Guardian newspaper and in a BBC1 documentary last year, she has been contacted by over 700 people who believe they have prosopagnosia and would like to participate in her research. Given that most investigations into prosopagnosia to date have examined relatively small numbers of cases, Sarah now has the unique opportunity to develop large-scale academic and societal impact by having the resources to test this large patient group.
You can read the full article in the Independent here.
Follow the events in the Centre on their webpage or via Twitter (@BUfacecentre).
Dementia
Most of us know someone touched by dementia – a friend, relative or loved one. As the average age of our population grows ever older, the chances are some of us will be affected.
As such dementia is emerging as a new strategic priority for BU, with investment from our HEIF funds to create the Bournemouth University Dementia Institute, or BUDI as the team like to call it. The team is growing rapidly working on a range of funded dementia projects with more in the pipeline. Working with the Director of BUDI Anthea Innes, Lee-Ann Fenge, Sue Barker, Vanessa Healsip, Michele Board have recently completed a review of Higher Education Dementia Curriculums on behalf of the Higher Education Dementia Network. Work that reflects Anthea’s previous experience leading masters and undergraduate programmes in Dementia Studies and the dementia focus of social work and nursing colleagues within the School of Health and Social Care. A number of research and knowledge exchange projects are underway including:
- An ongoing programme of work funded by Bournemouth Borough Council involves the BUDI team delivering a range of activities via two different programmes; a ‘cupcake club’ and a technology group. The evaluation report isn’t due until February 2013 so a lot is happening over the autumn months.
- A BU Research Development Grant enabled an early collaboration between the Schools of Tourism and Health and Social Care. This project led by Anthea Innes (HSC) and Stephen Page (Tourism) is currently being written up for publication and dissemination. It is the first study to conceptualise ‘Dementia Friendly Tourism’ as an area worth investigation to try and improve the leisure opportunities for those with dementia and their families; but the project will also produce recommendations to help advise tourism and leisure providers to enhance their provision to promote inclusion of those with dementia.
- An international study GRIID (Gateway Rural International Initiatives in Dementia), involving partners from Australia, Canada, India, Sweden and the UK is also in the writing up stages following a policy synthesis and survey of Alzheimer Disease International (www.adi.co.uk) members.
- European work is on-going too, focused on Malta where Anthea has long established links working on improving the quality of care offered in Maltese hospital wards
- A multi-site NIHR project has just commenced exploring site loss and dementia for people who continue to live at home. This is a collaboration between the Universities of York, BU, Cambridge, Worcester and consumer organisations; the Housing and Dementia Research Consortium (HDRC); Pocklington Trust supported by the Alzheimer Society and the Macular Disease Society
But this is just the start with money being committed by many of large funding agencies this is a societal theme of the moment. BU is part of a large FP7 grant application currently first reserve for funding, and BU is coordinating a multimillion ESRC grant application with 12 other institution due for submission this autumn. Working locally is also very much on the agenda. Staff in BUDI are working for example in partnership with commissioners and clinicians across Dorset to secure funding via the NHS South of England Dementia Challenge fund with BU as the evaluator for a number of innovative local projects proposed by those delivering dementia care every day.
BUDI launched 16 May 2012 just three months ago and the progress is impressive, but there is also a long way to go to achieve its objectives of making a real contribution to improving the lives of those with dementia and those who provide support whether they be family or paid clinicians and carers. This is not just an initiative launched from HSC but a cross BU one and I am delighted to announce the secondment of Samuel Nyman (Psychology, DEC) to BUDI to strengthen its work force and continue his existing collaboration with Anthea which includes a match funded BU PhD Studentship with Anthea Innes and Marilyn Cash which is looking at the role of gaming technology to support older men with dementia in rural areas. BUDI is looking for staff who wish to engage from across BU and is truly multidisciplinary in its approach and reach. There may be other who are interested in similar secondments and I would encourage them to get in touch with Anthea. DEC and Tourism are already involved with BUDI contributing staff and time but there is huge scope for others to get involved for example in the Media School. Why not drop Anthea a line and get in touch?
Also starting in September is Patricia McParland as BUDI Project Manager or Engagement Consultant, a post-doc appointment is pending, PhD student Ben Hicks will start soon and we will be advertising for an Associate Director for BUDI soon. BUDI has the full support of UET and is receiving strategic investment to make things happen quickly; dementia is of the moment as illustrated by the Prime Minister Dementia Challenge launched earlier this year and it’s for BU to cease this moment. BUDI offers the opportunity to have a real impact, to make a difference in our society, to develop practice and research and to do it quickly. Please get involved and get in touch with Anthea or myself directly.
Reducing sleep problems in children – BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers’ research features in the TES
Over the past couple of years BU’s Dr Andrew Mayers in the School of Design, Engineering and Computing, has been working with Bouremouth primary schools to try and reduce sleep problems in school children. Working in schools, sleep is probably the most common problem that is reported by teachers, head-teachers and staff, and Andrew stresses the importance of all children receiving enough sleep to prevent adverse effects on their education and health. He is currently studying the effects of CBD Gummies For Sleep after school staff noticed pupils were struggling to get through the day without falling asleep.
Andrew is currently exploring the possibility of conducting studies that examine the mental health and well-being of children, including how poor sleep affects their emotional, cognitive, social and educational development. He hopes the outcomes will help to offer a clearer understanding of the implications of sleep deprivation in children.
You can read the full TES article here: Can’t sleep, won’t sleep (published 27 July 2012).
Andrew’s research also featured in the Daily Mail: Parents offered ‘get your child to sleep’ classes as pupils turn up to lessons too tired (published 27 July 2012).
Andrew’s website is available here: http://andrewmayers.info/