Interaction, Dementia and Engagement in Arts for Lifelong Learning (IDEAL)
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Education Comm & Lang Sci
Abstract
Over the past few years, researchers, governments and social enterprises have become increasingly involved in the development of interventions to improve the quality of life for people living with dementia (PwD).
Arts activities such as arts & crafts workshops and art gallery guided tours have been identified as one effective way to give PwD a creative outlet, increased agency, and a reinvigorated sense of social identity.
However, for the artists and social enterprises running such interventions, there is little available training on how best to communicate with PwD in order to maximise the benefits of these interventions. The IDEAL project will address this through collaborative partnership with Equal Arts and Sunderland Culture, two UK organisations who offer creative ageing workshop programmes to support people living with dementia-related cognitive decline and resulting social isolation.
Based on research produced prior to, and as a result of, this funding, we will produce a training service - in the form of workshop packages and an online training programme - which will highlight and identify effective communication strategies for engaging PwD in a meaningful way in these activities. This would include examples of effective workshop activities and, more specifically, communication strategies, such as effective instruction-giving and effective evaluations of PwD work, based on real-world examples from a range of scenarios (i.e. when carers are present, when PwD are without carers, etc.)
In this research, applied linguists and social gerontologists from Newcastle University are building on a previous case study carried out with partners at Sunderland Culture, to investigate effective workshop activities and good communicative practices in arts interventions for people living with dementia (PwD). Through video analysis of recordings of arts workshops, language and non-verbal conduct were analysed to identify the interactional strategies that workshop facilitators (and carers) use that result in increased, active participation, and which enable people living with dementia to contribute autonomously to the activity. These insights have been shared with the stakeholder organisation, and have featured in research dissemination activities internationally, with invited talks given in to relevant stakeholders and research centres in Denmark and Sweden (2019), data presentations given in Japan (2018), and findings presented at a leading international conference (Finland, 2019). As a result of this, the NU team has been awarded the next Atypical Interaction Conference 2022, a prestigious international meeting attracting 200-300 scholars from around the world, and will be representing NU at the British Council organised RENKEI meeting in Tokyo, on Healthy Ageing and Dementia (March 2021).
The research dimension in the proposed project expands on the previous pilot study (in which one workshop setting was examined) to five new workshop settings in arts spaces across the Northeast of England. This will provide a more nuanced and detailed insight into effective activities, and related communication strategies, in such arts workshop settings, which will help to inform training materials more effectively.
The workshop programme will initially be delivered across the Northeast of England, with the potential for further roll-out, and the online training programme will be made available (online and as hard copies to order) for wider distribution through Equal Arts, the internationally recognised "creative ageing charity providing arts and creative activities for older people and those living with dementia" (equalarts.org.uk/our-work/creative-age). Through research-informed training, this project will improve the quality of arts interventions for PwD, which will in turn improve the quality of life for both PwD, and their carers.
Arts activities such as arts & crafts workshops and art gallery guided tours have been identified as one effective way to give PwD a creative outlet, increased agency, and a reinvigorated sense of social identity.
However, for the artists and social enterprises running such interventions, there is little available training on how best to communicate with PwD in order to maximise the benefits of these interventions. The IDEAL project will address this through collaborative partnership with Equal Arts and Sunderland Culture, two UK organisations who offer creative ageing workshop programmes to support people living with dementia-related cognitive decline and resulting social isolation.
Based on research produced prior to, and as a result of, this funding, we will produce a training service - in the form of workshop packages and an online training programme - which will highlight and identify effective communication strategies for engaging PwD in a meaningful way in these activities. This would include examples of effective workshop activities and, more specifically, communication strategies, such as effective instruction-giving and effective evaluations of PwD work, based on real-world examples from a range of scenarios (i.e. when carers are present, when PwD are without carers, etc.)
In this research, applied linguists and social gerontologists from Newcastle University are building on a previous case study carried out with partners at Sunderland Culture, to investigate effective workshop activities and good communicative practices in arts interventions for people living with dementia (PwD). Through video analysis of recordings of arts workshops, language and non-verbal conduct were analysed to identify the interactional strategies that workshop facilitators (and carers) use that result in increased, active participation, and which enable people living with dementia to contribute autonomously to the activity. These insights have been shared with the stakeholder organisation, and have featured in research dissemination activities internationally, with invited talks given in to relevant stakeholders and research centres in Denmark and Sweden (2019), data presentations given in Japan (2018), and findings presented at a leading international conference (Finland, 2019). As a result of this, the NU team has been awarded the next Atypical Interaction Conference 2022, a prestigious international meeting attracting 200-300 scholars from around the world, and will be representing NU at the British Council organised RENKEI meeting in Tokyo, on Healthy Ageing and Dementia (March 2021).
The research dimension in the proposed project expands on the previous pilot study (in which one workshop setting was examined) to five new workshop settings in arts spaces across the Northeast of England. This will provide a more nuanced and detailed insight into effective activities, and related communication strategies, in such arts workshop settings, which will help to inform training materials more effectively.
The workshop programme will initially be delivered across the Northeast of England, with the potential for further roll-out, and the online training programme will be made available (online and as hard copies to order) for wider distribution through Equal Arts, the internationally recognised "creative ageing charity providing arts and creative activities for older people and those living with dementia" (equalarts.org.uk/our-work/creative-age). Through research-informed training, this project will improve the quality of arts interventions for PwD, which will in turn improve the quality of life for both PwD, and their carers.
Publications
Brandt, A
Editorial - Introduction to the Special Issue on the Atypical Interaction Conference 2022
in Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders
Chris Leyland
Supporting people living with dementia to make choices: A Conversation Analysis study of choice-sequences and collaborative processes of co-creativity during creative workshops
in Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology
| Description | IDEAL (Interaction, Dementia, and Engagement in the Arts for Lifelong Learning) sought to identify particular benefits relating to the engagement in structured arts activities by people living with dementia. In addition, the project looked for successful communication strategies for how workshop leaders and carers could maximise these benefits in these activities. We built on a pilot project (funded by the British Academy) that we carried out previously on one workshop setting, and expanded our research to take in a range of additional workshop settings and activities organised by leading creative age organisation Equal Arts, in collaboration with a number of creative organisations across the North East of England, including galleries, museums, dance organisations and print workshops. We present a number of key findings here. 1. We were interested to discover how participants living with dementia struggled with common everyday instructions. On closer analysis, we found that such everyday instructions were actually deceptive in their complexity, and often included multiple instructions packaged together, and complex concepts relating to such ideas around aesthetic and genre, some of which referred to previous interactional episodes. We compared such instances against cases with more successful outcomes, and observed how instructor or carer were able to break down the instructions into smaller discrete parts, which were far more manageable for the person living with dementia to process. 2. Furthermore, when instruction was presented in ways that included more explicitly non-verbal actions, for example in arranging objects in such a way that triggered recall in the participants, or how eye-gaze was used to direct a participant's attention to some object, person or place, or in how a particular activity was modelled rather than explained, we found that engagement was improved and the person with dementia was able to work more independently, and to stay on task. In order to capture such fine detail, the research team introduced an unobtrusive 360-degree into the data collection, through which we were able to capture the micro-behavioural details of the interactions between participants, and do so from inside the interactional space rather than filmed from the outside. This gave greater access to the subtle ways through which participants coordinated multiple resources in their communications, as well as the details of the creative work the participants produced. A final area which we became interested in was how participants maintained a quality of playfulness in how the creative activities were managed, and what implications this had for the participants. We found that this orientation to creativity and playfulness - central for engagement in these types of the creative workshop, also allowed people living with dementia greater space to be treated as a socially competent member, with less emphasis by others on their dementia and the challenges this incurs in the everyday world. We identified how this was especially beneficial for the relationship between the person living with dementia and their carer or companion, allowing them opportunities to temporarily step away from the 'carer-cared for' relationship that makes up much of their lives together. |
| Exploitation Route | This funding was always in support of developing empirical research-based training materials for creative practitioners and organisations who work with or want to work with older people, and in particular people living with dementia. More specifically, our research focuses on optimising communication in these types of settings and creative activities, and the training materials are organised around this feature of workshop management (as opposed to any artistic and or creative merits). As such, the main practical output is the training materials, which are designed to be either delivered as a standalone training package, or as an add-on to existing training materials already in existence that are offered to creative practitioners. Having been able to generate data in a much wider selection of types of setting and activity, we have been able to develop our insights further regarding what communicative strategies occasion what outcomes. We are now actively feeding into Equal Arts' training and consultancy work, and trialling the workshop materials further before launching them fully as in-person and as online training package. Taking this forward, we will scale up these training materials to be less sector specific (i.e. third sector creative age organisations), adapting them as an offer to contribute to work in other such dementia-affected areas as social care, healthcare, retail, libraries and so forth. Secondly, our methodological approach to the study of dementia and communication is still somewhat in its infancy in the UK. Both by spearheading multimodal conversation analytic video analysis as an approach for investigating how members overcome challenges in communication, focusing on interaction as it happens (rather than post-hoc accounts for how it is remembered to have happened), we both complement and supplement existing UK research with a previously under-explored dimension, bringing UK dementia research more into line with similar research carried out elsewhere in the world (for example by our colleagues across Scandinavia). With the IDEAL research team acting as local organising committee for the international Atypical Interaction Conference 2022 (June 27-29), hosted at Newcastle University, we will use this opportunity to disseminate the work carried out through this project, presenting it in different formats at the conference. It will feature in talks given, in introducing Newcastle University as hosting institution (with its strategic focus on healthy ageing) and the members of the IDEAL team who organise the conference, and in invitations to stakeholder organisations who participated in the research project. Already, the creative age group organised through Sunderland Culture Creative Age and Arts Centre Washington have been invited to present the work they produced as part of the workshops. This will serve to give additional exposure to the work carried out by organisations such as Equal Arts, Dance City, and Sunderland Culture Creative Age that addresses creativity and ageing. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail |
| Description | This funding period for the project has now ended (11 march 2022), and timing of dissemination and training delivery has been impacted by the pandemic, including the recent Omicron wave. We foresee being able to report more on impact over the coming months and years, when the training is rolled out and the online training materials will be published and disseminated through the stakeholder organisations that we have been working with. That said, initial meetings with representatives from relevant stakeholder organisations, where we have discussed the findings of the research, have led to invitations to the team to provide input. For instance, on 11 March the research team met with representatives of a number of organisations and companies, to discuss challenges involved in their work and how our findings might feed into improving practice. This led to invitations to assist their organisations, crucial for the rolling out of our training package. This can be read as these meetings already impacting practitioners, as they express an understanding of the benefits of this knowledge for their sectors. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Title | Development of use of 360 degree video footage for dementia communication research |
| Description | Whereas studies of naturally occurring social interaction - drawing on the approaches developed in Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis and Context Analysis - have over recent decades gradually exchanged audio recordings for video, our research project developed additional capture methods by employing 360 degree video technology in addition to conventional audio and video data collection. The resulting video recording have been subsequently processed with 360 Degree video software (Insta360) to output video data that allows for the research team to track particular participants or groups of participants. This in turn also has allowed for the resulting video data to be incorporated into transcription linking software tools (in our case CLAN and ELAN) to allow for transcription to be fully integrated and temporally aligned with the video-files, crucial for making the analysis suitably robust. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The impact has to date been on our own research practices. However, we have presented on this research to others in the research community, and have discussed the benefits of this additional tool for video ethnographic research. Most recently, we shared this approach with members of the Research of Excellence in Multilingualism Across the Lifespan (University of Oslo), including Centre Director Professor Jan Svennevig, a researcher on dementia communication. The impact: In earlier research, we positioned cameras on the outside of the particular interactions from which we were generating our data. This is the conventional practice for data collection in video ethnographic studies of naturally occurring social interaction. Although this does allow for much of the conduct of participants to be captured as video data, even where multiple cameras are deployed, the researcher is only ever able to capture multiple limited views of the participants' communicative resources drawn on in their interactions. In the current study, we turned to 360 Degree video technology to be able to capture the data from inside the interaction, including the fine grained interactional work produced by such facial features as facial gestures, gaze conduct and head positioning, or the work of the various members' hands as they coordinate their work around the creative objects of the work-at-hand in these workshops. This interaction-internal view has proved to be transformative in what we have been able to observe and analyse, especially in terms of how participants coordinate the various communicative resources for managing intersubjectivity, for example in how the participants living with dementia are able to be guided in the activities, and how they are able to draw on resources beyond the linguistic to communicate their understanding or lack of. |
| URL | http://spencerhazel.net/research/video-analysis/ |
| Description | Equal Arts |
| Organisation | Equal Arts |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The use of video technology to generate data sets across different workshop settings coordinated by Equal Arts in collaboration with their partners Norther Print, Shipley Arts Gallery, Hatton Gallery, Sunderland Culture (Arts Centre Washington). Data processing and analysis, leading to training package to be delivered alongside their own trainign materials for artists working with people living with dementia, and other older people. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Equal Arts the coordination of artists and organising of the workshops delivering creative ageing session for older people impacted by dementia, including their carers. |
| Impact | This is a partnership between the research team at Newcastle University and the charity Equal Arts, who we continue to work with in order to develop and roll out the training programme that this project is developing. The multidisciplinary nature is that of social scientific communication research and arts practice. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Arts for healthy ageing workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | Engagement between members of the research team and the various creative ageing groups we have been working with. This included regular visits to continue communicating with the research participants, including artists and workshop participants, as well as the representatives from the organisations involved (Northern Print, Equal Arts, Arts Centre Washington, Hatton Gallery) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | Atypical Interaction Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Our leading of this project led to us being awarded the Atypical Interaction Conference, a bi-annual international conference on interaction and communication disorders. This allowed us to showcase this project and the work carried out by our partner organisations to some 80 international researchers and practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/aic2022/ |
| Description | Catalyst Showcase |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the project as part of the UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalyst Showcase. This led to invitations for meetings to explore the project's work further, from Alive Activities and Supersum, two organisations working with people living with dementia (meetings had 15 September 2021 and 16 September 2021 respectively). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Charity engagement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Engagement with variety of organisations which work within the field of arts and culture for healthy ageing; delivering guidance on the research being carried out, and how these research outputs can benefit the arts professionals involved in delivery. In person, organisations include Sunderland Culture, Equal Arts, Northern Print, Arts Centre Washington, Creative Ageing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021,2022 |
| Description | Creative Age meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | To coincide with a visit by Dr Virginia Tandy of Creative Ageing Development Agency, Equal Arts gathered together a number of stakeholders and practitioners who are either working in the area of Creative Ageing or looking to move into this area. Two members of the IDEAL team attended the event to feed insights from the research project, as well as to make contact with Virginia and other representatives from organisations who could draw on the research insights and who might be interested in inviting further engagement from the IDEAL team (including Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and Arts Diamonds, Gateshead). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Creative Age workshops (Trailblazer programme) - Hatton Gallery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | As part of their Creative Age programme, stakeholder partner Equal Arts offered a series of workshops for older people including people living with dementia in collaboration with Hatton Arts Gallery. This was one of the wider Trailblazer programmes which ran between October 2021 and February 2022 (with a break due to Omicron variant). The Trailblazer programme was part-funded by the UKRI grant in order for the research team to also be able to carry out data collection, and to engage with the participants. The research team attended the workshops, generating video data for analysis, and speaking with participants about the research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://www.informationnow.org.uk/event/equal-arts-at-hatton-gallery/2022-04-05/ |
| Description | Creative Age workshops (Trailblazer programme) - Northern Print |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | Stakeholder partner Equal Arts organised a series of Creative Age workshops for older people including people living with dementia in collaboration with Northern Print (Ouseburn, Newcastle-upon-Tyne). This was one of the wider Trailblazer programmes which ran between October 2021 and February 2022 (with a break due to Omicron variant). The Trailblazer programme was part-funded by the UKRI grant in order for the research team to also be able to carry out data collection. Two artists were involved over the course of the period, leading print making and pressing workshops for a small group of participants. The research team attended the majority of these workshops, generating video data as they happened. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://northernprint.org.uk/products/creative-age-printmaking-workshops?pr_prod_strat=collection_fa... |
| Description | Creative Age workshops (Trailblazer programme) - Shipley Gallery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Patients, carers and/or patient groups |
| Results and Impact | As part of their Creative Age programme, stakeholder partner Equal Arts offered a series of workshops for older people including people living with dementia in collaboration with Shipley Arts Gallery. This was one of the wider Trailblazer programmes which ran between October 2021 and February 2022 (with a break due to Omicron variant). The Trailblazer programme was part-funded by the UKRI grant in order for the research team to also be able to carry out data collection, and to engage with the participants. The research team were particularly interested in the dance and choreography workshops run in collaboration with Dance City (Newcastle), and leading on to a presentation of their work at Dance City's theatre as part of the Inspire Festival (February 2022). The research team attended the a number of these workshops, generating video data for analysis. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://www.equalarts.org.uk/our-work/creative-age |
| Description | NAM Innovator Summit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Poster presentation / video of project presented at the US National Academy of Medicine 2021 Innovator Summit for the global Healthy Longevity Catalysts (Online) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://nam.6connex.com/event/InnovatorSummit/login |
| Description | Presentation of Equal Arts work, with members the Equal Arts team and participants in the creative arts programme at the Atypical Interaction Conference 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | We invited the organisation that we collaborate with (Equal Arts in association with Washington Arts Centre) and the participants in the workshops to present and discuss their work with attendees at the international Atypical Interaction Conference, held at Newcastle University 27-29 July 2022 (with the organisation attending on the 28th). We set aside a central area of the conference reception area, alongside the poster presentations, and members of the workshop cohorts exhibited their work and discussed their work with conference attendees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/aic2022/ |
| Description | Presentation of project at Arts4Dementia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Talk given at event Social Prescribing to Arts as Diagnostic Practice in Tyne & Wear, in partnership with Equal Arts and Tyne & Wear Museums, by Zoom Thursday 24 September 2020 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |