My research focuses on everyday functioning in dementia and enabling independence for as long as possible, whilst addressing potential health inequalities in accessing the right care. For this, I am working with a number of national and international collaborators, in the Netherlands, Colombia, Chile, Australia, Uganda, Poland, and UAE.

I am currently leading the first Covid-19 dementia study in the country, exploring the effects of social service closures on the lives of people with dementia and unpaid carers. The study is ongoing with results expected very shortly, and more information can be found here. We are also working with Poland and Australia to conduct the same study there and compare data across the three countries.

In my role as postdoctoral research associate at the NIHR ARC NWC, I am the Principal Investigator on a number of dementia and health inequalities projects. This includes a European Alzheimer’s Society funded project into health inequalities in dementia care access in England and the Netherlands, also collecting Young Onset dementia specific data in Australia. Further funded international collaborations in dementia care include Colombia and Chile. I am also involved in the North West Coast Household Health Survey, looking at health inequalities in health service usage across the population. In addition, I am the research lead of a care home collaboration, where we work jointly with colleagues from the Netherlands on implementing changes to a local Liverpool-based care home and developing a UK Dementia Village. Additional collaborations and projects include working with the Brain Charity evaluating social support groups for people with dementia, and with the Liverpool House of Memories to look into evaluating their intervention for family carers of people living with dementia and care professionals, and trying to roll the intervention out to other neighbourhoods.

As part of my PhD at the University of Manchester, I have developed a novel tool to assess the remaining abilities in initiating and performing everyday functioning in dementia, which has been tested in over 600 caregivers of people with dementia nationally (see here for publication) and is started being used in clinical practice and has been translated into Spanish.

I am also the developer and organiser of the Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum, hosting bi-monthly free public seminars and bringing together professionals in the field.

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