In December 2023, I was invited to deliver the opening keynote at the annual conference of the German Studies Association of Ireland, which focused on the Medical Humanities this year. My talk explored the nexus between the culturally and medically prized concept of narrative and a culturally prevalent account of ageing as decline and loss.
Tag Archives: care
Shifting How We View the Ageing Process
As part of The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth, we had run a Policy Lab together with the Policy Institute at King’s in Autumn 2022. The one-day workshop had brought together academic researchers from a range of disciplines, practicing clinicians, people with lived experience and representatives from the care sector, charities and the policy world to explore how valuable, feasible and acceptable it would be to shift how we view the ageing process. Read the full Policy Report here.
REMIND: Esperienze e memorie reali nella cura
Delighted to have been invited to contribute the concluding remarks, ‘L’esperienza dell’Alzheimer: una vista differenziata e collettiva’ [The full view of the lived experience of Alzheimer’s disease], to a study on ‘Real experiences and memories in care: Narrating dementia in Alzheimer’s disease’, led by Maria Giulia Marini at ISTUD, Milan. This study brings together three perspectives, that of people with a diagnosis of dementia, that of their family members and that of healthcare professionals. In bringing these voices together, this study and the book resulting from it establish the framework for an ‘ecosystem’ for the wellbeing of all involved, based on the principle that each party learns of the others’ anxieties, limitations, aspirations and hopes in the confrontation with dementia.
Books Beyond Words book launch
A pleasure to attend the Books Beyond Words book launch held by Baroness Hollins at the House of Lords. Books Beyond Words are picture stories that help people with learning disabilities explore feelings and experiences. Look out for the charity’s BBC Radio 4 Appeal on Easter Sunday.
Interview about the UKRI FLF Scheme
Follow this link for an interview with the King’s Arts and Sciences Research Office Bulletin, in which I shared information about the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship scheme.
Lifelong Ageing
Our Lifelong Ageing workshop as part of SAACY brings together ECRs taking a lifecourse perspective of ageing with interested participants from local and national charities and third sector organisations. Check out our call for papers.
‘Exhausting, frustrating and lonely’
In July this year, the Founder Trustee of the Pam Britton Trust for Dementia in Warwickshire, Tony Britton, and I had a joint paper published in the journal Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice. Here’s the press release about the paper.
Literature and Dementia Care
The title of the plenary lecture I delivered at the Symposium on Ethics, Agency, and Personhood in Dementia at the University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, in August 2022, reflecting on how particular genres, narrative perspectives and tropes may or may not be productive for an enabling approach to the person with dementia and their care. Great to join Marlene Goldman, Ina Kjogx Pedersen and Peter Simonsen for a panel discussion, moderated by Cindie Maagaard, on the use of narrative medicine in dementia care.
The Sciences of Ageing and the Culture of Youth
In a guest post for the Science and Policy Blog of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy I reflect on diverging perspectives on ageing, motivations behind SAACY and recent work with third sector project partners.
Informal Dementia Care
An analysis produced by the Founder Trustee of the Pam Britton Trust for Dementia in Warwickshire and myself of the informal dementia care situation in England and beyond. Published in Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice, the piece critically reflects on contemporary policy issues related to dementia care and proposes actions for change. Thanks to funding from UK Research and Innovation this paper is available open access.
Martina Zimmermann 