What are we trying to do?

Our aim is to investigate the ways that people living with dementia and their care partners find, experience, and create meaningful moments in their everyday lives and to understand why these are important for them. We hope that this knowledge will help us to improve support and provisions for people living with dementia across the UK.

 

Why is this important?

Research suggests that thinking about meaningful moments in our daily lives and reflecting on these, may help us to feel more positive about our lives and connected to the things that make us happy. It can be easy to fall into the habit of focusing on the negative aspects of our day, while glossing over positive experiences.

We hope that being part of this study will help participants to recognise and reflect on positive experiences and that this may help them to navigate through more challenging times. We also want to understand what day-to-day activities and experiences are important for people living with dementia and their care partners. This knowledge will help us to work with health and social care providers to improve well-being support and provisions for people living with or caring for someone living with dementia.

 

How are we doing it?

Participants, people living with dementia and care partners, will be asked to keep a scrapbook of meaningful moments they create or encounter in their day-to-day lives. Participants will be interviewed about the moments they have collected and will also be offered the opportunity to share their moments as part of an exhibition at the end of the project.

 

Who are we working with?

The project is hosted by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester and is part of the NIHR School for Social Care Research, Division of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work at the University of Manchester. We are also supported by the Drama Department, School of Arts Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester

The study is funded by the National Institute of Health Research Applied Research Collaboration and the Alzheimer’s Society.

 

Funding:

This is one of four ARC-GM research projects that ARC-GM funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Alzheimer's Society Building Capacity in Dementia Research Programme.

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This funding is intended to support the new generation of dementia research leaders, bringing together researchers from different multidisciplinary backgrounds to encourage cross-cutting and community-orientated dementia research projects that can address key gaps in the evidence base.

 

More information about all of the ARC-GM research projects, and Dementia Fellows, funded as part of the Building Capacity in Dementia Programme, can be found from the ARC-GM Dem Com section of the NIHR ARC-GM website.

 

 

More information

 

 

 

Programme Manager
Alison Littlweood
alison.j.littlewood@manchester.ac.uk