Suzanne Cahill, Daphne Doran and Max Watson
This study aims to contribute to improving quality of life for people with end stage dementia living in residential care settings by investigating the experiences of elderly…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to improving quality of life for people with end stage dementia living in residential care settings by investigating the experiences of elderly spouses whose relatives died with end‐stage dementia in nursing homes in both Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI). A second aim is to develop guidelines for nursing home staff for the delivery of quality care to residents with end stage dementia in residential institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study had two phases. Phase one involved conducting in‐depth qualitative interviews with spouse caregivers whose relatives had died from dementia in long stay care environments. Phase two entailed incorporating the information gathered through the in‐depth interviews into draft guidelines and disseminating these to a multi‐disciplinary group of health service professionals for their critical appraisal and ratification.
Findings
Findings showed that the (EoL) care delivered was deemed by most elderly spouses to be of high quality, with person centred, individual, kind, professional care highly valued. Areas of dissatisfaction noted included poor communication, lack of involvement in key decision making, and poor symptoms control.
Originality/value
Based on the study's findings, guidelines for the delivery of quality care in long stay residential institutions were developed in consultation with eight health service professionals. The authors hope these guidelines will contribute to improvements in the care of people with dementia at end of life and will form the basis for the future development of policy, practices and procedures.
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Drawing on findings from the project ‘Walking around with our cameras’ (2014–16), this chapter explores educative and methodological implications of arts-based research. The…
Abstract
Drawing on findings from the project ‘Walking around with our cameras’ (2014–16), this chapter explores educative and methodological implications of arts-based research. The project on which this chapter is based was conducted in Bilbao (Spain) by two local organizations: Sala Rekalde, a contemporary art gallery; the Institute of Human Rights of Deusto University, a local artist and a group of migrant women. Analysis of this project offers insights into the ways that artistic practices afforded unique opportunities for migrant women to reconstruct and represent their migratory experiences. This chapter sheds light on the ways that participatory arts-based research can move across disciplines and enhance effective achievement on collaborative projects that work to give voice to the voiceless.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that school innovation is a complex process requiring a detailed accounting of the relational activity characterising everyday innovating…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that school innovation is a complex process requiring a detailed accounting of the relational activity characterising everyday innovating activity. It is further proposed that complex accounts of innovation practice that describe social factors only are insufficient.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a case study methodology, a focus on ideas of resistance and tension is used to explore the character of actual innovating experiences. Underpinned by assumptions of relationality and indicative of a poststructuralist and postmodern perspective, Actor‐Network Theory is applied as an analytical tool to investigate the sociomaterial character of everyday enactments of innovation practice in four independent boys' schools in Australia.
Findings
Four data stories describe multiple patterns of innovating activity that cannot accurately be accounted for in terms of a general notion of resistance. The idea that tension enables innovation practice is proposed.
Research limitations/implications
Approaches to school innovation that assume difference should be smoothed out or there is a risk of obstructing its practical accomplishment.
Practical implications
This paper provides a case for school leaders to expect and cultivate conditions that enable innovative tension and the co‐presence of multiple patterns of innovating activity.
Originality/value
In addition to critically viewing managerial notions of school innovation, this paper draws on the cross‐disciplinary research to include materiality as an active agent shaping, as opposed to providing a context for, innovating in schools.
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Siobhan Fox, Niamh O'Connor, Johnathan Drennan, Suzanne Guerin, W. George Kernohan, Aileen Murphy and Suzanne Timmons
The Model for Dementia Palliative Care Project will develop a service-delivery model for community-based dementia palliative care. Many countries provide dementia palliative care…
Abstract
Purpose
The Model for Dementia Palliative Care Project will develop a service-delivery model for community-based dementia palliative care. Many countries provide dementia palliative care services, albeit with considerable variability within these. However, little is known about what service providers consider to be the most important components of a dementia palliative care model. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory design using a survey method was used as an initial phase of the wider project. A web-based survey was developed, piloted (n = 5), revised, and distributed within five healthcare jurisdictions: the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales. The target population was health and social care professionals, policymakers, and academics interested in dementia and palliative care. Content analysis of open-ended questions identified common themes; descriptive statistics were applied to the closed-ended questions.
Findings
Overall, N = 112 complete surveys were received. Key care principles incorporated the philosophies of palliative care and dementia care; many described “holistic” and “person-centred care” as the core. Important individual service components were the support for carers, advanced care planning, information, education and training, activities for “meaningful living”, comprehensive disease management, coordinated case management, and linking with community health services and social activities. Barriers included poor availability and organisation of healthcare services, stigma, misconceptions around dementia prognosis, insufficiently advanced care planning, and dementia-related challenges to care. Facilitators included education, carer support, and therapeutic relationships.
Originality/value
This study, as part of the larger project, will directly inform the development of a novel service delivery Model of Dementia Palliative Care for Ireland. The results can also inform service planning and design in other countries.
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Katherine Brown Rosier and David A. Kinney
This volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth showcases the timely and important work of active, early career sociologists, who are helping to define the direction of…
Abstract
This volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth showcases the timely and important work of active, early career sociologists, who are helping to define the direction of the sub-field. Their work shares basic premises and concerns, and these underlie and provide cohesion to this diverse collection of chapters. Children and youth are active agents in their own “socialization,” producing meaning and action collaboratively with their peers, and they struggle for agency and control in various social contexts – these are the themes that, both explicitly and implicitly, shape essentially all of the contributions. The underlying concern of our own introduction above, and of many of the chapters, is that the current processes and practices may stifle children's creativity and undermine their potential to collaboratively construct innovative solutions to societal problems.
This paper attempts to contribute to an expanding body of literature that critically engages with both the theory and practice of market segmentation. Through the theoretical lens…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper attempts to contribute to an expanding body of literature that critically engages with both the theory and practice of market segmentation. Through the theoretical lens of liminality and its implicit elements, the notion of boundary creation inherent in age‐based market segmentation of the youth market is explored.
Design/methodology/approach
Using empirical data collected as part of a longitudinal study on liminal consumers, marketing's attempt at laying down parameters and constructing borders is presented as a strategic exacerbation of liminal zones already replete with tension and ambiguity.
Findings
It is concluded that theoretical consideration of this data highlights the fluidity and porous nature of such constructed boundaries, rendering attempts at creating discernable, knowable segments, potentially futile. Thus by critically viewing this segment, not just as a marketing demographic, but as a liminal zone, an alternative consideration of the theory and practice of age segmentation is presented.
Research limitations/implications
The longitudinal study spanned a period from midway through the participants' final months of primary education and early stages of secondary education. Research that focused on their completion of a year in secondary education would perhaps have yielded further insights.
Practical implications
This research offers tangible insights into the social worlds of a burgeoning market segment, albeit a liminal one, offering actionable realities based on the inextricable intertwining of their consumption practices and lived experiences.
Social implications
Rather than view children as socio‐cultural non‐descripts who are of interest to marketers purely for their ability to be located along a continuum of cognitive development, this research aims to understand and explore the specific intricasies of the tweens' mediation of their liminal world using consumption practices
Originality/value
Consumption practices emerged that highlighted the attempted resolution and mediation of such tensions while also pointing to the clear mutability and ambiguity of supposed borders between child, tween and teen segmented groups. Age‐segmentation, conceptualised by marketers as a strategic creation of borders so as to enhance product offerings little reflects the realities of how age is perceived, experienced and acted out by those categorised within the margins and parameters of targeted marketing. By viewing this segment, not just as a marketing demographic but as a liminal zone where liminars “elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space”, an alternative consideration of the theory and practice of age‐segmentation is presented.
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The quantity and scope of the information that has materialized so far on the subject of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) has increased significantly since the first…
Abstract
The quantity and scope of the information that has materialized so far on the subject of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) has increased significantly since the first case of the syndrome in the United States was diagnosed in 1981. Initially, information could be found only in a few articles in the medical periodical literature or in a few newspapers. Gradually, more information appeared in health care, allied health, and other professional journals and periodicals. As the incidence of the syndrome increased, more newspapers and the mass market magazines and the electronic media began covering the syndrome, and both health care professionals and the general public found themselves presented with a steady stream of information, research, and education on the subject of AIDS.