Podcasts, Tech Week

Podcast – Design & development of Tech Interventions

Hosted by Dr Anna Volkmer

Reading Time: 25 minutes

Technology & Dementia Week Special – Episode Two – Learning about the Design & development of Tech Interventions. Exploring the challenges and practicalities of how to set-up and deliver a tech and dementia intervention trial.

This week we turn the spotlight on tech and dementia research, we have three special podcasts (released on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), numerous blogs from people researching and using the latest technologies, and updates on the wider field.

Our podcasts have all been recorded with early career researchers working across Europe, undertaking research projects aiming to improve the lives of people with dementia and their carers through technology and from the DISTINCT Programme (Dementia: Intersectorial Strategy for Training and Innovation Network for Current Technology).

In this show guest host Dr Anna Volkmer talks to Fanny Monnet from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Josephine Rose Tan from Amsterdam University Medical Centre and Gianna Kohl from University College London.

In addition to the overview, each guest shares information on their own projects:

  • Fanny is researching an interactive website for advance care planning (ACP) for people with dementia and their family.
  • Josephine is a health psychologist evaluating the effectiveness of a person-centred touch-screen based photo-activity for people with advanced dementia.
  • Gianna is researching the use of technology in disclosure of dementia by the diagnosed individual to their social networks.

For more information on DISTINCT and guests projects visit: https://www.dementiadistinct.com/


Click here to read a full transcript of this podcast

Voice Over:

Welcome to the NIHR Dementia Researcher Podcast, brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk. In association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Welcome to the Dementia Researcher Podcast, bringing together early career researchers and leaders within the field to discuss their research, hot topics, and to share career tips. I’m Dr. Anna Volkmer and I’m a speech and language therapist and NIHR Senior Research Fellow at the University College London. And it is my great pleasure to be back in the hot seat, guest hosting this show.

Now this week, we are turning a spotlight onto technology research and how it’s being applied in dementia. We’re publishing a number of feature blogs and posts on the dementia research website on this topic and bringing you these three special podcasts.

In these shows, we are joined by early career researchers from the Pan European DISTINCT group, or to give its full title, the Dementia Intersectional Strategy for Training and Innovation Network for Current Technology, part of INTERDEM. We’re going to be discussing their projects, giving an overview of how technology and dementia research is progressing, and providing some insights and tips for others who might be interested in this field.

So today, in the second of these shows, we are discussing design and development of tech interventions. But before we get to that, let’s meet today’s brilliant guests. So, I’m delighted to be joined by Fanny Monnet from … I’ve said it wrong, Fanny, can you tell me the university name in Brussels?

Fanny Monnet:

It’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Thank you. Vrije. I don’t think I’ve got the accent, but I’ll move on to Gianna Kohl, who’s from University College London, and Josephine Tan from Amsterdam University Medical Center. So, welcome everybody. So, let’s set the scene. Technology is all around us, of course, and increasingly used in research in a massive range of different ways nowadays. So, we have telehealth, something I do a lot of, online cognitive tests. We have assistive technologies and wearable devices and using the data that can be gathered by technology to also help inform diagnosis, prevention, or even through AI, which I find quite exciting, and machine learning to better understand the disease. Well, that list felt long, but it felt like it could have been even longer. Did I miss anything obvious?

Fanny Monnet:

Well, I think it’s also important to note that we can also use everyday life technologies such as apps or websites and that they can be used in research and also to support people living with dementia. So, for example, in our projects within DISTINCT, we use everyday life technologies to promote the social health of people living with dementia.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Fantastic. Is there anything else? Because I have to say, I always forget those things because I almost don’t think of them as technology. If they’re already in our daily life I just think of them as things we do. I forget they’re actually under that framework. Is there anything else that you would include under the technology framework, Gianna, or Josephine?

Gianna Kohl:

Yeah, we’re talking about social robots. We have a few colleagues who work with social robots and there’s different kinds. And yeah, it’s very interesting to see. I think it’s mostly in nursing homes and care homes that they are being used just to see people interact with these robots.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, I’ve seen some of the, even the low-level robots where you can have a cat that purrs. I’ve seen some of them. They’re fantastic. So, Fanny, Gianna, and Josephine, you are all PhD students who are actually immersed in this space at the moment, aren’t you? And in the first part of this show, we are going to do some proper introductions because I really want to hear more about everyone’s research and in what you are actually immersed. So, Josephine, actually, can I come to you first? I gather your project is exploring the effectiveness of touch screen-based photo activities. That sounds like it might overlap with what I do with my clients, so I’d love to hear more about it.

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah, sure. So, for our project, we wanted to address the lack of psychosocial interventions in the nursing home for residents with dementia and their careers. Often residents with more severe dementia are left without activities that provide meaningful social interactions because perhaps carers don’t know how to interact with them anymore. So, for our project, we’re exploring the effects of a digital and artistic photo intervention that focuses on the triangle of the resident, the family, or the informal carer, and then also the professional career in the nursing home.

We hope that through the intervention, the resident feels more known as a person in the nursing home and not just for their dementia. We hope that the formal carers develop a more empathic attitude towards the residents and that the family carer also feels a greater sense of competence in terms of caring for their loved one and then passing on the knowledge to the nursing home staff. So overall strengthening the relationships between the resident and the carers.

First, we developed an app that we’ve called the Photo Scope and it’s currently a web-based app at this stage. So, it’s meant to be used on a tablet by a formal or informal carer together with the resident with dementia in the nursing home. And our project was based on a pilot study that used artistic generic person-centered photos in conversation with the resident. So that study compared using generic photos that were not related to the interest of the resident or not person-centered, and then generic photos that were in line with the residents’ interests. Because usually when we think of activities in the nursing home, it’s with family photos, so personal photos. So, this time the activity is using generic photos. And the difference is just whether it’s something that reflects your interests.

So, what they found was with the generic photos, if the photos were in line with your interest, the carers got a more positive reaction, and the residents were livelier in the conversation. So, it’s like if you showed me a photo of a dog versus a photo of a car, I would probably react more positively to the photo of the dog because I like dogs and I’m not that interested in cars. And so, it was based on this pilot study because they used printed photos, the team now decided to make a digital version of this photo activity where we’re hoping it’s easier because it’s on the tablet. And then we also created a special profile page where carers can easily talk to the family, figure out the interests, and then use the function on the app where they can easily select the photos and bring it all together to talk to the resident.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

And how are you measuring the outcomes? Because you described the participants, the patients with dementia being observed to be livelier and more engaged and having fun. How is that measured in that study?

Josephine Rose Tan:

So, in the study that we’re doing, we have observers and also feedback from the carers themselves. The nice thing is usually we get the carers saying, “Oh, I don’t think this activity is going to work with so-and-so because he doesn’t really talk.” And then during the actual conversation with the photos, they end up saying more and then the carers are surprised and they’re like, “I’ve never heard these stories before.”

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah.

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah, it’s really nice.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That sounds really interesting. It sounds like it overlaps with the study I’m very familiar with done by a speech therapist who looked at carers having conversations with their family members with or without photos. And they found with a photo that the amount of content, so the relevant, they call them relevant information carrying units, that there were more of them when there was a photo and that actually there was more, I think proper nouns used as well. So, I wonder if there’s another kind of more objective outcome that you could borrow, or maybe not borrow. Sometimes I advocate objective measures, but actually what you are describing is probably more important, where the people are actually having fun, isn’t it?

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah. No, that’s interesting because we compared the group using the Photo Scope with the group who’s just encouraged to talk. So, we just tell the carers to, oh, have a cup of tea with the resident. So, both the groups have a cup of tea, but the other one has the Photo Scope, the other one doesn’t. And so far, just from our observations, the residents in the group where there’s no Photo Scope, the carers tend to point a lot to objects in the room. So, I think having something to talk about really helps enhance the conversation.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Their interactions. You need a kind of objective mutual attention, don’t you?

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah, exactly.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Gianna, if I could come to you next, now your research sounds like something I’d also benefit from in my role as a clinician, as I gather, you’re developing a digital intervention to support people who feel uncomfortable sharing their diagnosis within their social networks.

Gianna Kohl:

Yes, thanks, Anna. Yes, that’s correct. So, as you know as a clinician, receiving a diagnosis of dementia can have an enormous effect on or impact on people who receive the diagnosis and those who support them, for example, family members. And unfortunately, dementia is still heavily stigmatized, and many people might be wary or anxious sharing the diagnosis with family and friends or people they know less well. So that in turn can lead to them socially withdrawing, not taking part in activities, but also less access to post-diagnostic support because you have to reach out to people and resources and share that you have a dementia diagnosis.

So that’s where our website comes in or the intervention that we are working on. So, the website we are developing is based on an intervention that’s called Who to Tell: How and When, which was developed by my colleague at UCL, Dr. [inaudible 00:11:52]. And it is aimed at supporting people who are fearful of sharing the diagnosis in their decision-making process. So, it’s not so much about them having to disclose the diagnosis, but just feeling comfortable in the decision you make and thinking about who would I like to tell and who maybe not, and when would be a good moment to talk about it?

So the reason we are making a website out of this intervention is just to make it more accessible to people and to make it available to people who cannot or who do not want to attend the face-to-face intervention, especially since access to good post-diagnostic support seems to be a bit of a postcode lottery as I’ve learned in the studies I’ve done.

So, to tell you a bit about how we are doing this adaptation, so I’ve done two rounds of focus groups with people with dementia and family carers. And the first round of focus groups I told the participants about the intervention, and we just wanted to get an idea of what platform would they like to use, what format, what do they find important in a digital version. So based on their feedback, I then started creating a website. I’ve been using Wix, which is a free website builder, just to make a start with it. And then I did a second round, which I actually just finished, again with people with dementia and family carers where I showed them photos off the website to get feedback on the design and how it looks and the amount of text, I put on there.

So yeah, that’s the studies I have done. And maybe to tell you a little bit about the conversations we’ve had and maybe some of the things people mentioned that I or we found interesting is I remember when I started with a PhD, I thought, Oh, I really want to make an app because an app is so fancy and so cool and it seems like the ideal tool to have an intervention. But I did the focus groups then in July and people said, “No, we don’t want an app. We think it’s fantastic to have this intervention, but we’re not going to use it that much. It’s probably going to be really useful for someone who’s struggling to go through the content and through the sessions, but then you’re not going to use it again and an app wouldn’t be worthwhile for them.”

Another thing that really came up a lot in both rounds of focus groups is how do people access it? So, people already by themselves talked about implementing it and you have to make sure its easily accessible, people have to find out about it. So, they talked about involve organizations like the Alzheimer’s Society, for example, make use of what is already out there to spread the word. Which again, I think kind of shows that a lot of people struggle with accessing appropriate support after the diagnosis.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Absolutely. You could see me vigorously nodding. I think support is so tricky and it’s a huge decision, isn’t it? And yeah, are you able to, through the website, make it more personally relevant or is it very broad? Is it kind of a psychological intervention that supports people to decide whether to share it? Or is it about how-to, or it’s not about how-to? Is that correct?

Gianna Kohl:

No, that’s part of it, but it’s a bit generic, I would say. So, there’s three sessions. People think about what does it mean to have dementia? Because, for example, there’s a stigma attached to it. But also, what are the pros and cons of telling and who might support them if they do tell? And maybe there’s a neighbor who doesn’t need to know because that person has never really been supportive in the past. So, it’s thinking about different things that are important, I guess, in just having the dementia diagnosis.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

And levels of social networks. That makes complete sense. It’s surprising sometimes. I’ve worked with people who haven’t even told their spouse or partner, and then I’ve worked with people who their family knows, but they have never thought … So recently I’ve been working with somebody who goes on a lot of dog walks and then lost their dog. And then actually that was an issue because he couldn’t communicate with people because of his diagnosis, and it became a real barrier of whether to or how to communicate. They hadn’t even thought about that kind of outer ring, how to tell people in the public domain. It’s so complex. It’s such a multilayered onion, isn’t it?

Gianna Kohl:

I think especially what you said earlier that someone might not even have told their partner or spouse. A lot of the times when the person does receive the diagnosis, they’re accompanied by their spouse and partner, for example. So, then you need to have a discussion maybe, whose diagnosis, is it? Maybe the partner wants to share it, whereas the person with the dementia diagnosis doesn’t. So, there’s lots of things you need to think about, I guess, in that process.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That happens all the time with the clients I work with, where one person thinks it’s something that should be shared, and the other person really is petrified of sharing. It’s really, really got many layers. And actually, clinically, we don’t always have the capacity to then go through that with them, the full journey. So, it’s really useful to have these kinds of other tools for some people who can then do that in their own time independently. That’s really exciting as well.

Well, finally, Fanny, I can see that you are also working on an interactive website, but this one’s around advanced care planning for people with dementia and their families. Which is actually, it’s a topic I’m personally quite passionate about because I think I often talk about an advanced care planner as being a bill of rights, a way of maintaining your voice in your future care when I’m talking to clients. And so, I’m quite keen on it and that’s been the focus of some of my, I guess more clinical work, but my advocacy and increasingly of my research. So, tell us about your research on this.

Fanny Monnet:

Yes, so I think first to go into advanced care planning, indeed, it’s actually really an ongoing process that really enables people to identify their values and define goals and preferences for future care and also treatments. And so, the process really involves people discussing their life values and what matters most to them, and any wishes for the future with both family and healthcare providers like you mentioned.

It can also include designating a proxy decision-maker or filling in an advanced directive, but we see actually that advanced care planning remains quite infrequent among people with dementia. But actually, they do recognize that it’s an important process, like you said, it’s something that can give them a voice. And so, we’re thinking, okay, what’s keeping them from engaging in advanced care planning? And we’ve seen that there’s different difficulties that they can experience. They may not know what advanced care planning is and what they can and cannot do. They might have difficulties with emotional conversations within the family, but also with the healthcare providers or they just need more guidance on how to conduct those discussions. We’ve seen that tools to help in advanced care planning in general have been aimed at other conditions than dementia. And that’s where we started our project of developing an advanced care planning website.

So, our project, we really started from nothing, and we organized it in three phases. So first we did a user need assessment to ensure that we developed something that people feel they need and that they feel they can use. And then in our next phase we moved on to the design and development phases. And now we’re now at the last phase where we will evaluate the website after its development. But to go a little bit more in depth into the development part, for the development, we adopted an agile development approach, which means that we work in iterations. So, we developed the website little piece by little piece.

So, our first step was really to summarize all the data that we had collected in the user need assessment phase. We did focus groups, we looked at what information was already out there on advanced care planning and on dementia association websites, for example. And we summarized all that and were able to develop in collaboration with an IT partner our first prototype. And then we worked in four iterations. So, we tested small bits by bits. So first we had a look at just the overall layout, the structure, the homepage, and we tested that. Then we developed an informational side of the website and we tested that. And then a communication part of the website that also includes interactive tools to help with communicating about advanced care planning. And that’s the third round. And then we tested it as a whole in our last round of testing.

I think really what I want to emphasize was that the most important thing for us was to involve people with dementia and their family caregivers throughout the whole process. So, we did that in two ways. First, we formed a PPI group where we involved people with dementia, carers, but also members of regional organizations in dementia and in palliative care. And there we were able to get feedback on our different prototypes and to get advice on how to go forward.

And then we also did really a usability testing with participants. So, we recruited people with dementia and family carers, and we tested each of our prototypes. And to do that, we used a think aloud method, which we ask them to really use the prototype, and as they go through it, voice their thoughts, their first impressions, any difficulties they might run into. And after the think aloud method, we also used directly after they used it, a usability questionnaire. So that was more or less how we went about the development of the website.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Fantastic. So, as you’ve developed it, I’m presuming you’ve had to do it in one district because the legislation around advanced care planning is different in different countries.

Fanny Monnet:

Yes.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So, it’s a tricky thing to navigate. Even linguistically it’s tricky to get around that, isn’t it?

Fanny Monnet:

Yeah, yeah, indeed. So, I work at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, which is based in Flanders, in Belgium, because even in Belgium there might be differences between regions, there’s different languages. So, we’ve developed the website in Dutch. And so that was also something that we’ve considered when we were looking at who to involve in our PPI group. And that’s why we’ve involved organizations within Flanders that can also advise on these kinds of things.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

But it’s a really useful model that then once it’s trialed, the same processes could be used to set up similar systems or similar sites in different legislative regions. That’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing these three amazing projects that are clearly all going to make a really practical difference in people’s lives. Now there are 12 other projects just like these that you can find more information about at dementiadistinct.com. But before I move on, I just wanted to ask you a quick question. How did you develop these interventions during COVID? That must have been very tricky.

Josephine Rose Tan:

Very tricky indeed. For me, I was, I think the last one to enter the DISTINCT group. I started in February 2020. So, two weeks into office, we went into lockdown. So, we really started the project as an online project. And for my experience, because I wasn’t fluent in Dutch yet, and we were working a lot with the nursing homes, and of course older adults. And so, it was more difficult for me to kind of navigate. But I think everyone just really made an effort to connect online. And so, I realized I also had to make extra effort. So, I used the translation software for all my emails to communicate with the carers and the families. And I made it a point to really be warm and try as much as I can to show my appreciation for what we’re doing. Because we’re not meeting in person, but everyone’s so willing to help out. So yeah, I’m still amazed to this day at what technology can do. I almost did this whole PhD project completely online, so that was great.

Gianna Kohl:

Yeah. One thing I noticed was, and that might be to our benefits. Because older people or people with dementia had to stay connected through technology they became more, what’s the term? Affluent? They became more used to it. It wasn’t the right word, was it?

Dr Anna Volkmer:

No, I guess you mean more adept at using online.

Gianna Kohl:

Yeah, they got more used to it. And it was, I guess a little bit easier to reach out to them and to have them join online meetings because they were used to it already. So that’s one small benefit, I guess, because overall it was tricky.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah, that makes complete sense. In this final segment of the show, we are going to talk a bit more broadly about tech studies and hopefully with some tips and advice for anyone also coming to the field. So, what do people need to think about in advance of planning an interventional tech trial?

Fanny Monnet:

For me, I think really the main thing is involve your target group. Listen to what they need and what they want. There’s no need to spend money developing a technology that will never be used, and really do this from the start. Don’t wait until you have a prototype to start involving them. Really do it from before you start the development process.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Fantastic. And what challenges did you come across while developing your interventions?

Fanny Monnet:

One thing that we noticed is that, and that’s not only with people with dementia, it’s with everyone. We all have different levels of familiarity with using technology and using the internet. And we saw this when we started testing our prototypes was that initially we started testing them on computers, only computers. And then we noticed in our first round of testing that people were trying to touch the screen of the computers like a tablet. And so, there were things that we weren’t expecting that we had to adapt to. So, we really made sure after that round that our website was compatible also with tablets and that people could use whatever device they preferred, be it a tablet or a computer. So, it’s these kinds of small, unexpected things that you need to take into account and adapt to, I think.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Which really emphasizes the point of not only listening to what they say, but watching what people do right from the beginning, isn’t it? So, it’s about observing and listening and working alongside people with lived experience. That makes complete sense. I’m glad you gave both examples because that’s something I’m often … I often feel like I’m telling other people to watch and listen to people with dementia, not just write them an email, but actually interact. So how does developing a technological intervention for people with early-stage dementia differ to developing a technological intervention for people with more moderate to advance stage dementia and even older people in general? Josephine, that sounds like a question for you.

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah, I can speak for the moderate to advanced dementia. I guess for the practical things, we had to make sure that all the photos we used had high readability so that people can see them well. And on the tablet, we made sure that you can enlarge the photo. So yeah, both the carer and the resident will have a good view. Whoever is holding the tablet in terms of collecting, I guess, data or feedback from the residents. Have to keep in mind that your questionnaires shouldn’t be too long, or if you can avoid questionnaires at all, that’s better.

So, in our project we use what’s called the Smiley Face Assessment Scale, which is like five smiley faces that say, how do you feel about the intervention? Or how are you feeling now? And they can just point to happy, very happy, or neutral, or sad, very sad. And then of course, they’re free to add on whatever. So, it’s not a limiting way of asking about their feedback. And then also just to say that, especially with people who have later stage dementia, there’s always the assumption that this won’t work, they won’t use the technology. So, it’s also trying to counteract that from the carers and saying, there’s a lot of things that we can still do together.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Do you video record the people as they’re using the technology?

Josephine Rose Tan:

No, we don’t, but we do observe via video call.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Okay. Because I can imagine a great study, a great interactional analysis study would be to examine how they interact around the photo and the app. I can almost envisage what that would look like. Maybe can you tweak your ethics and make some video recordings?

Josephine Rose Tan:

That definitely sounds interesting, but it just reminded me of one resident who was … the way they interact with the app. Holding the app. But I guess she is thinking it’s like a book because my tablet then had the cover, so she was doing that. And so yeah, it would’ve been great to catch that in a recording. Yeah.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Well next time, or an amendment, who knows. So next question, what people did you work with during the development of your study and your technology and how did you choose how to work with them? What else is important to consider? This question could include a bit about budget. Perhaps, Gianna, would that be relevant?

Gianna Kohl:

For me personally, not so much. I think that’s also … I do have some suggestions in that sense that I developed this website using Wix. So, I was the only one working on it, which saved a lot of money, I would say, but I’ve never done this before. So, I think if you’re on a budget and you don’t have so much money, make use of, for example, undergrad students who are working in IT or computer science. Have them have a project where they can actually develop a website or an app for you. So, I did it by myself, but I know Fanny, for example, she’s done the whole thing with software companies, so maybe she has something on that topic.

Fanny Monnet:

I think for us, the most important thing was to work with a partner that could see your vision, which didn’t just want to build something and be done. So, we really had to look at companies in Flanders. We wanted to work with a regional company that could also advise us on language or these kinds of things. And so, we also wanted to have a company that had already worked with people with dementia and that had already worked with PhD projects. Because technology is a very fast field. They move really fast, whereas a PhD project is a little bit slower. You have to test things; you have to double check things with supervisors or these kinds of things that you have to take into consideration. So, we really had to look at someone that knew how we would work and that wouldn’t mind it. So that’s kind of the things that we took into consideration when we chose who we were going to work with.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

So, you didn’t need to be a techy person already. You didn’t need coding skills or anything like that in your undergraduate degrees?

Fanny Monnet:

No.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Everyone’s shaking their head. No one. Useful. Okay. So, what advice would you have for anyone else coming to this field of research? Who would like to take this question? Do you want to go back to Gianna or Fanny?

Gianna Kohl:

Yeah, I can. I’m happy to go first. Yeah, so I think you often underestimate people with dementia. And of course, people in the more advanced stages won’t have the ability to give as much feedback maybe as someone in the early stages. But yeah, don’t underestimate how much people with dementia and cognitive impairments can still do and how much they can contribute to research and help you with your studies would be my advice.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That’s a top tip. Any other quick top tips?

Fanny Monnet:

Yeah, I just want to say I completely agree with Gianna, and I think also what I really enjoy working in this field is that it’s a really multidisciplinary and intersecting field. You learn from other people, and you get to share your knowledge with other people. And I think that’s what makes it such a rich field of research.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Brilliant point. And Josephine, anything else? Top tip?

Josephine Rose Tan:

Yeah, just to add to that, what we said before, we all didn’t have a lot of techy experience, so don’t be afraid if there’s something you don’t know because you learn a lot on the job. And I really think that we need more researchers in this field because technology is really hot, it moves fast. We need the support from researchers who also take into consideration the ethical side of things. So yeah, we need to look after the people who we want to help in the end.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

Yeah. Makes sense. So, it’s time to finish up today. Now, Gianna, can you tell our listeners where to go to find out more information on this program and all of your work?

Gianna Kohl:

Yes, of course. So, I’m working with the UCL’s unit for stigma research, and if you Google that, you’ll find more information.

Dr Anna Volkmer:

That’s wonderful. And we’ll include a link in the show notes. But just to summarize, really, if you are interested in research in tech, remember you don’t have to be techy. This is an incredibly interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary field and in that team of multidisciplinary people are of course people with dementia. And we should never underestimate the value of working alongside with, collaborating with people with dementia and what they can bring to this innovative and exciting field.

I’d like to thank these incredible guests today, Fannie Monnet, Gianna Kohl, and Josephine Tan. Good luck with all your projects and we hope you will come back again to us and update us as things progress. Because I think these are not only exciting research projects, but hugely clinically relevant. And I certainly want to hear more. I’ll be back in a few days’ time with the last show in this special series. But in the meantime, I’m Anna Volkmer and you’ve been listening to The Dementia Researcher Podcast. Bye now.

Gianna Kohl:

Thank you so much.

Fanny Monnet:

Bye. Thank you.

Gianna Kohl:

Bye.

Voice Over:

Brought to you by dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk. In association with Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society. Supporting early career dementia researchers across the world.

END


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