Mentor Areas
In her research, nationally recognized nurse scientist Dr. Nancy A. Hodgson aims to center the person living with dementia, which includes supporting care partners, developing and evaluating cutting-edge technologies, promoting dignity, minimizing symptoms, creating dementia-friendly environments, educating health care workers, and honoring peoples’ preferences for care at the end of life. Her team incorporates evidence-based findings into advancing dementia care. Dr. Hodgson’s projects involve family-centered initiatives that support both the person living with dementia and their care partner during various stages of dementia and memory impairment. Dr. Hodgson’s current research focuses on implementing and evaluating evidence-based interventions in a variety of real-world healthcare and academic settings, and is refining her research focus around the intersection of dementia caregiving and technology and innovation.
Description:
Multiple studies are operating with potential openings for students involving study recruitment, data collection and management, data analysis, training in various research methods, and dissemination of research findings. Our team is multidisciplinary and collaborative.
A. Using AI to Predict Depression and Burden in Caregiver-Clinician Conversations is a secondary study using data collected in the COPE in PACE R01. This is a pilot study funded by PennAITech and NIA. The Hodgson team is collaborating with Dr. Li Shen’s research lab from Perelman School of Medicine to develop and evaluate a machine learning model to classify caregiver burden and depression levels and extract language associated with such classifications. The dataset includes 1) validated measures of burden completed by caregivers receiving the COPE program and 2) hour-long audio recordings and transcripts of COPE clinical conversations. Evaluation results will be shared with an advisory group of healthcare system and dementia caregivers. Advisory group members will share their opinions around user experience and best practices for this type of innovation in AD/ADRD space. Through participation in internal study meetings and auditing of the advisory group, research assistants will experience and participate in a multidisciplinary research effort. Research assistants may be engaged in transcript annotation, data cleaning, quality control and de-identification of automatically transcribed audio files. This study may lead to additional research opportunities and grants that exist at the intersection of dementia caregiving and artificial intelligence/machine learning.
B. Activities4Care: A Digital Platform to Enhance Caregiver Well-being by Providing Customized Activities that Improve Quality of Life for People Living with Dementia. This project seeks to build and test a new digital platform accessible via computer, tablet or smartphone. The proposed platform will provide caregivers with detailed personalized, actionable instructions for using meaningful activities that our software dynamically adjusts based on caregiver inputs concerning PLWD cognitive/functional abilities, interests, and care context. The study aims involve: 1) developing a clickable prototype mapping common activities to PLWD, caregiver, and environmental characteristics from which actionable, customized activity plans are generated; 2) determining caregiver feasibility, acceptability, and usability using validated survey measures with diverse caregivers; and 3) conducting focus groups with the caregivers to obtain qualitative feedback and preferences. The second phase of the project seeks to incorporate Phase I prototype testing and qualitative feedback to complete build-out and integration of the platform. The team will conduct a two-group randomized, wait-list controlled trial to evaluate if a) caregivers use Activities4Care to generate activity plans; b) caregiver confidence using activities improves; c) caregivers save time; d) caregiver well-being improves; and e) PLWD behavioral symptoms and acute care utilization are reduced. Student research assistants may be involved in data collection and management.
C. Revisiting Teaching Nursing Homes, Phase II: Disseminating Across Pennsylvania willbuild upon the pilot and aims to scale across Pennsylvania and at least six other states. Current study aims include partnering academic nursing schools and nursing homes across Pennsylvania to improve nursing school curricula, train nursing students in geriatric care, enhance nursing home residents’ quality of care and outcomes, as well as evaluate interventions and disseminate resources and lessons learned. As the project evolves, the research assistants’ opportunities will evolve.
D. TAP (Tailored Activity Program) for Better Living is an occupational therapy program designed for older adults with memory problems. TAP for Better Living will be adapted by occupational therapists (OTs) employed by an independent living facility for delivery to residents who do not have a dementia diagnosis. OTs will meet with residents and a partner (spouse, neighbor, friend, etc.) to 1) identify preserved capabilities, previous roles, habits, and interest, 2) develop customized activities, and 3) practice and evaluate activity use. The study team will administer pre & post surveys to OTs and residents to evaluate the acceptability of the TAP program and see if it is able to maintain healthy brain function in residents. Students will be involved in resident and OT informed consent processes, data collection, data entry and management, data cleaning and bi-weekly meeting discussions.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with qualitative and quantitative data collection, study recruitment, and data analysis is preferred but not required. The student will have the opportunity to learn the following skills, dependent upon project: 1) participant recruitment, consent, and screening; 2) data collection and data management using databases such as REDCap and Qualtrics; 3) data analysis; 4) qualitative and quantitative research methods; 5) training in implementation science; 6) conducting literature reviews and contributing to grants, presentations, and publications; and 7) participating in research team meetings and collaborate with researchers and stakeholders across various institutions.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.