Postgraduate Research Students
Emer Begley
Emer graduated with a PhD in 2009 and is currently Policy Officer in Age Action Ireland, a non-profit organisation which advocates for the rights of older people. Her research, funded through the Social Policy and Ageing Programme (2004-2009) provides insights into the lived experiences, the health and social care needs and service utilisation of people living with early-stage dementia. It links the ‘personal’ to the ‘political’ by placing their experiences within a framework of the Irish health and social care system, hence embedding the personal, lived experiences within the systemic context. Using an Interpretive Phenomenological Analytical approach people with dementia provided information at two time phases. Implementing research methodologies that successfully included people with dementia was a key aspect of the study, one underpinned by a person and relationship-centred approach. Data was also collected from care-partners about their own experiences as well as to provide contextual information. The final phase of data collection comprised interviews with key policy experts to gain a full understanding of the current socio-economic and cultural context of care in Ireland.
Emer’s work had previously been funded by the Trinity Studentship (2004-2005) and the Dementia Services Information and Development Centre (DSIDC) research fellowship (2003-2004). She has a BA in Sociology and Greek and Roman Civilization from University College Dublin (1999); an M.Sc. in Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin (2001) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics also from TCD (2007). Before starting her PhD Emer was the Irish research co-coordinator for the DSIDC on the ENABLE project, a EU funded project examining the role of assistive technologies in the lives of people with dementia and their carers (2001- 2004).
Publications
Book chapter:
Cahill, S. and Begley, E. (2009) Health Technologies for People with Dementia: The Enable Project In: Moniz-Cook, E. and Manthorpe, J. (eds) Psychosocial Interventions in Early Stage Dementia: A European Evidence Based Text. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Peer review journal articles:
Topo, P. Saarikalle, K. Begley, E. Cahill, S, Holthe, T. & Macijauskiene, J. (2007) I don't know about the past or the future, but today it's Friday – Evaluation of a time aid for people with dementia. Technology and Disability 19(2-3): 121-131.
Cahill, S. Begley, E. Faulkner, J. & Hagen, I. (2007) It gives me a sense of independence: Findings From Ireland on the use and usefulness of assistive technology for people with dementia. Technology and Disability 19(2-3): 133 -142.
Cahill, S. Begley, E. Topo, P. Saarikalle, K. Macijauskiene, J. Budraitiene, A. Hagen, I. Holthe, T. & Jones, K. (2004) I know where this is going, I know it won’t go back; hearing the individual’s voice in dementia quality of life assessments. Dementia 3(3): 263-280.
Bjorneby, S. Topo, P. Cahill, S. Begley, E. Jones, K. Hagen, I. Macijauskiene, J. & Holthe, T. (2004) Ethical considerations in the ENABLE project. Dementia 3(3): 297 – 312.
Hagen, I. Holthe, T. Gilliard, J. Topo, P. Cahill, S. Begley, E. Jones, K. Duff, P. Macijauskiene, J. Budraitiene, A. Bjorneby, S. & Engedal, K. (2004) Development of a protocol for the assessment of assistive aids for people with dementia. Dementia 3(3): 281 – 296.
Topo, P. Maki, O. Saarikalle, K. Clarke, N. Begley, E. Cahill, S. Arenlind, J. Holthe, T. Morbey, H. Hayes, K. & Gilliard, J. (2004) Assessment of a Music-based Multi-media Program for People with Dementia. Dementia 3(3): 331-350.
Non-peer review journal articles:
Begley, E. and Matthews, F. (forthcoming) A Policy & Legal Review of Elder Abuse in Ireland Studies, Spring 2009.
Begley, E. and Cahill, S. (2001) Carers; why women? Studies 92(366): 162 – 170.
Reports Marsh, S. and Begley, E. (2009) Consulting People Living with Dementia, St Brigid’s Pilot Study.
Begley, E. and Marsh, S. (2005). Evaluation of an advocacy initiative in a city centre nursing home.
Martha Doyle
Martha is a Research Fellow and part-time PhD student in the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre (SPARC). Her PhD thesis explores the evolution and influence of older people’s interest groups in Ireland. It addresses how older people’s interest groups seek to influence age-specific policies in the Irish context and the social, economic and political factors which impact upon their influence. The completed research will be of practical relevance to policy-makers and organisations who work on the development of ageing social policy. It is anticipated that the findings will be of practical relevance to organisations and groups who aim to implement consultation mechanisms that enable participation of older people in the formulation of policies which impact on them.
Martha holds a first class honours degree in Psychology from NUI Galway (2000), a Master in Applied Social Research (2002) and postgraduate Diploma in Statistics (2006) from Trinity College Dublin. Since joining SPARC in June 2005 she has conducted research on the provision of domiciliary care in Ireland, Germany, the US and Denmark, the application of community-based participatory research with older people and the experience of migrant care workers employed in the long-term care sector. Prior to commencing work in Trinity she worked as a Researcher in the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, Dublin and a Research Officer for the Australian Guidance and Counselling Association, Sydney. She completed an internship in the Equality Authority, Dublin, worked as a Quantitative Project Manger in New Zealand’s’ largest market research fieldwork company, Consumer Link and an Editorial Assistant in Impact Healthcare Communications, New York. Martha has co-authored two books and several peer-reviewed articles.
Presentations:
Marita O’Brien
Marita O'Brien was conferred with a Ph.D. in 2010. She graduated from UCD with a BA degree in Social Policy and Linguistics in 1999 and completed an MSc in Applied Social Research, TCD in 2003. She was a research and teaching fellow with UCD School of Applied Social Science from 2004 to 2005, where she taught in the area of needs and service provision for older people and evaluation research. She joined the Social Policy and Ageing Research Programme in October 2005 on a PhD Studentship funded by Atlantic Philanthropies.
PhD Research Project
Marita O’Brien is undertaking PhD research on assessment and decision-making in the discharge of older people from acute hospital, focusing on older people’s participation in this process.
The research objectives are
- To gain an insight into the process of discharging older people from acute hospital
- To explore the concept of participation in the discharge process from the perspective of older people and their families
- To explore key professionals perceptions and understanding around participation
Discharge from acute hospital represents a critical juncture in the system of care for older people. Over 50% of all admissions to acute hospitals are for people over 65. The majority of these people have pre-existing chronic disease, so following treatment of an acute episode many will continue to require some form of support and care. A key principle of the National Health strategy (2001) ‘Quality and Fairness: a health system for you’ is the provision of person-centred care. This model emphasises the participation of clients in decision-making about their care and the provision of services in response to individual’s preferences and circumstances. However participation is a responsive process and is contingent on engagement between individuals and health care professionals.
This research will describe the discharge process and explore the concept of participation from the viewpoint of older people, their families and the professionals involved in the discharge process.
Publications:
Curry, P., O’Brien, M (2006) ‘The male heart and the female mind: A study in the gendering of antidepressants and cardiovascular drugs in advertisements in Irish medical publication’ Social Science and Medicine, (in press) available online 7 October 2005
Presentations:
Ciara O'Dwyer
Ciara worked as a Research Fellow in SPARC until January 2011 and is currently completing her PhD. The aim of her PhD is to explore the process through which the National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People in Ireland, published in March 2008 by the Health and Information Quality Authority, were developed. The thesis will take the form of a retrospective stakeholder analysis. It is hoped that the findings from the research will provide policy-makers with more information on the potential benefits and shortcomings of using a similar approach to develop standards in related sectors, both in Ireland and elsewhere (e.g. home care for older people, residential care for people with disabilities).
Ciara holds a Masters of Science in Applied Social Research (2004) and a postgraduate Diploma in Statistics (2004) from Trinity College Dublin. She received a higher second class honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and English from Trinity College Dublin, with first class honours in sociology. Prior to commencing work in Trinity College, Ciara worked as a Research Consultant with Fitzpatrick Associates Economic Consultants. She has also worked as a researcher on the National Flexi-Work Partnership, in Trinity College and for Goodbody Economic Consultants. Ciara’s PhD is funded by the Centre.
Yoshio Oro
Research Topic
A Qualitative Investigation of Older People Participating in Club-Based Sports Activities
Supervisor: Dr. Virpi Timonen
I am an emeritus professor at a university in Japan where I taught English Literature and English Studies for 40 years. Following retirement, I became active in voluntary work, especially in the sports sector. I first came to Ireland to study Social Gerontology at the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology in NUI Galway. The purpose of my project at the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre is to investigate older people’s sports activities in Ireland and in an international context. It is envisaged that this project will further our understanding of the role of older people as participants in sports activity and the contextual, cultural and functional features of organised sporting activity for older people. The research also has potential to feed into the further development of sports organizations and into public health policies for older people in Ireland and internationally.
Maria Pierce
Maria Pierce was conferred with a Ph.D. in 2010. She completed her doctoral research through the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre (SPARC) Ph.D. Programme. The title of her thesis is Social Policy and Ageing-related Care in Ireland: An Exploration from a Social Constructionist Perspective. The thesis explores social policy and ageing-related care through the lens of social constructionism. It takes much of its inspiration from Foucauldian constructionism and Foucault’s focus on discourse to explore multiple policy discourses on ageing-related care. The thesis also explores older people’s discourses and thus draws on a key concern of scholars working within a micro social constructionist perspective of ageing, that is, to hear the voices of older people.
The thesis relies on a qualitative research approach. The empirical data comes from four different sources: (1) official policy documents; (2) interviews with policymakers; (3) focus groups with older people; and (4) newspaper reports. The thesis employs a grounded theory approach to guide the data analysis. The analysis is organised around three discursive themes: family, care and ageing; ageing and formal care providers; and ageing, care and opportunities for social interaction and participation in social activities.
The thesis presents a recent history (1968-2005) of social policy and ageing-related care in Ireland through discourse in relation to each of the three discursive themes. Through a constant comparison with the dominant discourses identified in official policy documents on ageing-related care, this thesis shows that the discourses of policymakers can be understood as multiple discourse mixtures. It shows that older people live in a world that is rich with discourses and that older people are able to draw on them in complex and creative ways when discussing social policy and ageing-related care. The thesis demonstrates that older people have considerable agency. It raises the question of the potential transformative effects on ageing-related care policies of hearing the voices of older people. In other words, if the discourses of older people were elucidated and then taken seriously in the policymaking process, policies in relation to ageing-related care would look remarkably different from the policies already in situ, particularly if they were built around a ‘dominant’ discourse of many older people, that is, ‘older people are social beings’.
Maria Pierce graduated with a Bachelor degree in Social Science (B.Soc.Sc.) from UCD in 1997, following which she worked as a Research Officer in Irish and European Social Policy in Dublin. Maria started lecturing in Social Policy in University College Dublin, where she held the positions of Research and Teaching Fellow in Social Policy (2001-2004) and Researcher and Lecturer in Social Policy (2004-2005). She taught a wide range of lecture courses including Social Gerontology, Irish Family Policy, European Family Policy, Women and Social Policy and Health Policy. Maria’s research focuses on the area of social policy and ageing. She has a particular interest in long-term care policy, social theories of ageing, and constructionist perspectives of ageing. Maria worked as a Research Fellow with SPARC in 2010 and is currently Research Fellow with the Living with Dementia Research Programme, also in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, TCD. Her publications in the area of social policy and ageing are as follows:
Pierce, M. and Timonen (2010) A Discussion Paper on Theories of Ageing and Approaches to Welfare in Ireland, North and South, CARDI, Belfast and Dublin.
Pierce, M., Fitzgerald, S. and Timonen, V. (2010) Summary and Comparison of Social Provisions for Older People in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, SPARC, Dublin.
Pierce, M. (2010) Social Policy and Ageing-related Care in Ireland: An Exploration from a Social Constructionist Perspective, Ph.D. Thesis, Trinity College Dublin.
Pierce, M. (2008) ‘Constructions of ageing in Irish social policy’ in Kennedy, P. and Quin, S. (eds.) Ageing and Social Policy in Ireland, UCD Press, Dublin, pp. 5-19.
Pierce, M. (2006) ‘Older people and social care’ in Fanning, B. and Rush, M. (eds.) Care and Social Change in the Irish Welfare Economy, UCD Press, Dublin, pp. 190-205.
Carol Stone
Funded by the Health Research Board and Irish Hospice Foundation for 3 years, Carol is carrying out a mixed methods study to examine the risk factors for falls and impact of falling in patients with advanced cancer. The principal supervisor for her project is Professor Rose Anne Kenny, Head of Dept of Gerontology, TCD. Dr Virpi Timonen, Director of SPARC and Dr Peter Lawlor, Clinical director, Our Lady’s Hospice are co-supervisors.
Results of the small number of studies designed to identify risk factors for falls in patients with advanced cancer suggest that falls are a common occurrence. The studies conducted to date have examined only a limited number of potential risk factors. It is likely that, in patients with cancer, falls risk and effective interventions for falls prevention are different from the general elderly population.
The principal aims of the quantitative component of the PhD are: (i) to identify baseline risk factors for falls and acute precipitants for falls in adults with cancer receiving palliative care (ii) to identify differences in risk factors for falls, between those aged less than 60 years and those aged 60 years or more (iii) to determine incidence of autonomic neuropathy in adults with cancer receiving palliative care.
Participants who fall will be invited to participate in a face-to-face interview to explore their experience of falling and any impact on wellbeing, subsequent behaviour and attitudes to their disease. The findings will inform the development of a multicomponent falls prevention strategy, the efficacy of which will be subsequently tested in a randomised controlled trial.
Carol is a medical graduate of the University of Glasgow (1997) and has worked in Scotland, Australia and Ireland. She has just completed an MSc in Palliative Care at King’s College London. Other areas of interest include the nature and accuracy of prognostication in advanced malignant and non-malignant diseases.
Publications
Stone C, O’Leary N. Systematic review of the use of radiotherapy and botulinum toxin for sialorrhea in ALS. J Pain Symptom Manage 2008 [epub ahead of print]
Stone C, Tiernan E, Dooley B. Prospective Validation of the Palliative Prognostic Index (PPI) in patients with cancer. J Pain Symptom Manage 2008; 35:617-622.
Payne A, Barry S, Creedon B, Stone C, Sweeney C, O’ Brien T. Sensitivity and specificity of a two-question screening tool for depression in a specialist palliative care unit. Pall Med 2007; 21: 193–198
Survey of experiences and views of doctors in St Vincent’s University Hospital of prognostication (MSc thesis, unpublished).
I obtained BA (Hons) in Social Studies in 1979 at Liverpool Polytechnic and worked in Residential Child Care for two years before undertaking the professional qualification in Social Work. Following qualification I worked with children in care and in child protection in Nottingham from 1983 to 1987, before joining the NSPCC specialist assessment team in Leicester. In 1989 I moved to Scotland and worked in an Out of Hours social work service covering all aspects of emergency care provision.
I took up the post of Head of Social Work in Meath Community Care in 1994 and remained there until 2001. I was seconded to a national project which was established to assist the Health Board implement Children’s First, the national child protection guidelines. During the two years of the project I was involved in writing national guidance documents as well as reviewing and advising on the progress of implementation. In 2003 I returned from secondment and given the task of looking at the protection and welfare of older people, in the HSE Dublin North East. I provide training to a wide range of staff on elder abuse, as well as providing guidance and support to staff on matters relating to the protection of older people.
I am also a member of two national committees on elder abuse and have presented at three national conferences on the subject. I have also co-presented a master class with Professor Karl Pillemer, a major researcher and author in the field of gerontology.
Doctoral work: Reporting Elder Abuse in Nursing Homes
While research has identified that during their career staff working in nursing homes do witness considerable amount of abuse. However, rarely does that abuse get formally reported. The research will focus on the barriers to staff disclosing abuse, while also looking at the experiences of staff where they have disclosed abuse to their managers. The research will be qualitative in design and cover a range of staff working in nursing homes including nurses, care assistants, and nursing home managers.
I am supervised by Dr Evelyn Mahon.