News

Our presentation at the Best Practice in the Care Home Sector conference (#CTBestPractice) features in the November issue of the Caring Times.

David presented the latest research from the LAUGH project at the UK Dementia Congress.  This is the largest conference on dementia in the UK and was held at Doncaster Racecourse.  Over 700 delegates attended from professional experts, people living with dementia and carers, health and social care workers as well as specialists in dementia from other sectors including care homes, academia and the creative arts.

Jac was recently invited to participant in an AHRC Creative Development Lab at FACT Liverpool, on the theme of arts and cultural interventions in dementia care.  During this day-long event participants mapped the current state of the field and explored future opportunities for collaborations across disciplines.

The lab was part of a larger project to co-design a Creative Economy Health and Wellbeing Hub.

The LAUGH team were invited to run a Hand i Pocket funshop as part of Chapter’s Tinted Lens: Alzheimer’s Awareness Day.  Chapter had organised a day of film, information sessions and dementia awareness to celebrate World Alzheimer’s Month.

Cathy and Gill encouraged people to join them in making sensory textiles pockets for people living with advanced dementia.  Thank you to everyone who stopped by to make one!

Jac and David joined other academics, artists and practitioners at the TAnDem Arts and Dementia Conference: Making sense of arts and dementia, perspectives on research and practice, organised by the University of Worcester.  The conference explored the links between research, arts and dementia practice, and what happens when an artist works with people with dementia.  The event celebrated the potential of the arts to enrich and support the lives and care of people living with dementia.

Jac presented stories around the latest LAUGH playful objects at the Best Practice in the Care Home Sector conference.  This was the inaugural conference from the Caring Times publication, held at the MAC Theatre, Birmingham.  The conference was designed to highlight the excellent practice which is happening in residential care homes, and the LAUGH objects were received with a wonderful response.

Cathy and Jac recently took part in the Does Design Care? workshop, organised by Imagination Lab at Lancaster University.  Design researchers were invited to this International Workshop of Design Thought and Action to explore what it means to care.  The position papers from the workshop participants can be found here.

Cathy presented LAUGH research on sensory design for dementia care alongside Dr Anke Jakob at Dementia Lab, Dortmund, Germany.  Dementia Lab invited designers, researchers and educators working with people living with dementia, to share their insights at this international gathering.

We will provide a link to the publication written by Anke, Cathy and Dr Helen Manchester for the event, when it becomes available.

The LAUGH team presented the research at the British Society of Gerontology conference in Swansea, in the symposium ‘Co-designing creative technologies with those in later life’.  Conference proceedings can be found here, and our paper is on p.63. ‘Laughter and playfulness: designing objects to engage people with advanced dementia.’

Cathy was invited to speak at the ‘Ageing Playfully: Inspiring ways to work with people with dementia’ seminar, at Imagination Lab – Lancaster University.  She spoke about her research and experiences around play with people living with dementia, showing the Sensor e-Textiles project.