England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, in his annual report (published on 10 November 2023), says we need to focus on how to maximise independence and minimise time in ill-health between people reaching older age and the end of their lives.
End of life care is a sensitive but hugely important subject. Many people say that they would like to die at home rather than in hospital. Yet living in a more deprived area means you’re significantly more likely to die in hospital, less likely to die in a hospice, and less likely to die at home. Joanna Davies is investigating why this happens, and how it might be changed to better fulfil people’s wishes.
Within the older British Sign Language community, dementia can show itself as changes in the way someone signs – but these subtle changes are hard to spot by those who don’t use sign language. Dr Anastasia Angelopoulou and her team have developed an automated machine learning tool that can spot these changes. The tool will help identify the early stages of dementia among older users of sign language – ensuring they get the right support quicker.
Dementia is a complex condition that can progress rapidly in some people. Professor Kelvin Jordan and Dr Michelle Marshall from Keele University are leading a team of researchers using routinely gathered patient data from GP medical records to find …
We know that people are living longer, but simply measuring life expectancy doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of life that older people are experiencing. In this research, Professor Carol Jagger and her team are using longitudinal data to assess how much of this increased life expectancy is spent with disability – and whether changes are seen across the population, or are affected by deprivation.
There is a large amount of healthcare data available in the UK, and new statistical techniques are allowing researchers to analyse differences in dementia care between ethnic groups in detail for the first time. Professor Claudia Cooper used this data to identify inequalities in access to dementia diagnosis and prescription of different drugs in Black, Asian and White groups.
Very little research has been done to understand the health and social care needs of older trans people, particularly those transitioning at an older age. Dr Paul Willis and his team wanted to understand the challenges faced by older trans people accessing health and social care in Wales.