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Supervisors: Dr Kate Walters, Dr Nathan Davies, Dr Greta Rait, Dr Rachael Frost, Dr Christina Avgerinou,
Jane Wilcock
Our Centre undertakes a broad range of research on effective healthcare for older people, health
promotion/behaviour change in later life, self-management of long-term health conditions, the
epidemiology of ageing and age inequalities. Particular areas of interest are frailty, dementia, Parkinson's
Disease, mental well-being, loneliness, health promotion in later life, and end-of-life care. CAPS is a multidisciplinary
research group with expertise in the development and testing of complex interventions, health
service research methodology, epidemiology of ageing and mixed methodology including qualitative
methods. We are happy to work on new ideas in these themes with students, or projects linked to our
ongoing work as detailed below.
Project: Personalised care for Parkinson's Disease (PD-Care)
Supervisors: Dr Kate Walters, Dr Nathan Davies, Prof Elizabeth Murray
There is an opportunity to join this new five-year programme of work funded by the NIHR due to
start in Sept 2018, which will develop a new approach to support self-management for people with
Parkinson's Disease (PD), integrating new technologies. Work includes a series of systematic
reviews, qualitative studies, co-production of an intervention with people with PD and their carers,
and ultimately a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). There are several opportunities to develop PhD
ideas linked to this work within the themes of self-management of long-term health conditions,
preventing hospital admissions/improving non-specialist care for complex conditions and comorbidities
and integrating new technologies into health care management.
Project: Predicting the onset of Parkinson's Disease (PD)
Supervisors: Dr Kate Walters, Prof Anette Schrag
This study would build on our work which explored prodromal symptoms for PD using routinely
collected healthcare data, to examine risk factors for future PD and the role of potentially neuroprotective
drugs. There is potential to develop a PhD in this field, suitable for someone who has
quantitative analysis skills.
Project: Primary care-led post diagnostic Dementia care (PriDem): developing evidence-based,
person-centred sustainable models for future care
Supervisors: Dr Kate Walters; Dr Greta Rait, Jane Wilcock
We have recently been funded as an Alzheimer's Society 'Centre for Excellence' in dementia
research with the University of Newcastle to develop and evaluate improved models for dementia
care in the community. There is an opportunity to join our team for this 4 year programme of work
starting April 2018. This work includes systematic reviews, qualitative studies, co-production of an
intervention and a pilot RCT. Possible project ideas include work to gain a better understanding of
what person-centred care means for someone with dementia and/or how we can improve the care
of physical health conditions in the context of dementia.
Project: Supporting family carers of people with dementia at the end of life: Developing a decision
aid
Supervisor: Dr Nathan Davies
The end of life for someone with dementia can present a number of challenges and difficulties.
Family carers are often the main providers of care and as the person with dementia lacks capacity
are faced with making difficult decisions as proxy. There is currently a lack of support for family
carers making decisions. We have just received funding from the Alzheimer's Society to develop
and test the feasibility of a decision aid. There is an opportunity to join the team and contribute to
a systematic review, secondary analysis of qualitative data and conduct semi-structured interviews
with family carers and practitioners. There is potential to extend this into a PhD on decision making
in dementia care.
Contact: k.walters@ucl.ac.uk n.m.davies@ucl.ac.uk
