Funded by: ESRC-NIHR and the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund on Dementia (£3.22 Million)
About the Project
MARQUE is a five year long study taking place all over England. Responding to the government’s ‘Challenge on Dementia’, MARQUE aims to increase knowledge about dementia, agitation and personhood. Agitation is extremely common in people with dementia and causes distress to themselves, family carers and paid carers. Agitation is currently tackled on an individual level, not an organisation level.
The research will involve observing and interviewing a wide range of people with dementia and those who care for them at home, in care homes and in hospital in order to better understand how agitation is currently managed, barriers to good practice and how care could be improved.
We will use this information to develop, test and implement a manual to train staff about how to reduce agitation and improve quality of life in care homes. We will also develop a plot home intervention and will further develop another manual to improve people with dementia’s end of life for ‘terminal agitation’.
Project Aims
- Build on theories of personhood in dementia to understand agitation, resilience and compassion to improve public debate and discourse.
- Make agitation as much as a part of dementia care as risk assessment.
- To improve and maintain quality of life in people with dementia whether at home, in a care home or in hospital.
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Investigators
- Professor Gill Livingston (Chief Investigator, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London)
- Dr Claudia Cooper (Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London)
- Professor Paul Higgs (Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London)
- Professor Gerard Leavey (The Bamford Centre, Ulster University)
- Dr Penny Rapaport (Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London)
- Dr Elizabeth Sampson (Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London)
Publications
Hoe, J., Jesnick, L., Turner, R., Leavey, G. & Livingston, G. (2017). Caring for relatives with agitation at home: A qualitative study of positive coping strategies, British Journal of Psychiatry Open, 3(1), 34-40.