NW England: Greater Manchester AHSN Hackathon 'Young Carers'

Date: Thursday 31st July

Time: 8.30 – 17.00

Lunch and refreshments will be provided


On the 31st July GM AHSN invite you to an all-day hackathon focussed on developing solutions that can make a difference to the lives of young carers.

There are currently over 700,000 carers in the UK. In the addition to the difficulties of caring for a sick relative, many are placed at a disadvantage in terms of their academic and social lives. The hackathon is your opportunity to make an impact, test your skills and work collaboratively to help develop solutions to this often overlooked social problem. The event is open to everybody, regardless of experience, though we’re particularly looking for:

• Carers and anybody with experience of the challenges faced
• Software developers
• Web developers
• Designers/ UX experts
• Health and social care professionals
• Marketers
• Project managers
• Researcher
• Coders

The GM AHSN has worked with young carers to identify key challenge areas in:

• Support for epilepsy
• Alert systems for schools and offices
• Time management for young carers
• Social Networking for young carers

(Click here for more info on challenges)
The hackathon will bring together all the right people to help develop your idea in super quick time: You can meet and work with people with skills and experience from the healthcare and technology industries, all with the common goal of wanting to make a difference. The event will be attended by a group of young carers from the Manchester based charity Family Action, who will be acting as mentors and contributing to the development of your concepts.

Prizes

As a prize, the winning team will be rewarded with a day of free consultancy from Inventya, to help develop and commercialise your idea. Inventya is a science and technology commercialisation consultancy with an 80% success rate in helping early stage companies win funding for R&D and technology product development.


If you’d like more information, please contact sarah.dougan AT gmahsn.org

My source: @Stefan
 
[ I can't make it :( ]

ERCIM News No. 94 Special theme: "Intelligent Cars" (memory and driving - PJ)

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 94 has just been published at
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en94

Special Theme: "Intelligent Cars"
Guest editors: Jaroslav Machan (ŠKODA AUTO a.s., Czech Republic) and Christian Laugier (Inria, France)
http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en94/special/


Keynote: "Collaborative Mobility – Beyond Communicating Vehicles"
by Ilja Radusch, Ilja Radusch, head of department “Automotive Services and Communication Technologies” at Fraunhofer FOKUS and head of the Daimler Center for Automotive IT Innovations

This issue for download
pdf: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN94/EN94-web.pdf
epub format: http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN94/EN94.epub

Next issue: No. 95, October 2013 - Special Theme: "Image Understanding" (see Call at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/call)

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
About ERCIM
ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics - aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry. Leading European research institutes are members of ERCIM. ERCIM is the European host of W3C.
http://www.ercim.eu/

<>

Each issue of ERCIM NEWS is a gift and for me it does not have to be a special theme that speaks directly to the health care, informatics or education communities. I have followed this publication and posted on W2tQ about many fascinating new issues. I'm sure it is over a decade ago since I also subscribed to Technicity, a magazine from Daimler. I bring the two publications together for two reasons (not due to sponsorship - how I wish):

Firstly, this is such a difficult time socio-economically in the EU, evinced in the proportions of younger adults who are unemployed. Publications like this show the opportunities for young people who aspire, but to do so they need the support and opportunities. Safety, design, materials science, energy systems and storage, city transport infrastructure and planning, security, nanotechnology, communications, vehicular informatics ... the possibilities for youths are amazing. In turn, however we need to recognize and respond to the employment potential of those whose path is not primarily academic and research based.

Secondly, in community mental health nursing services for older adults we often come across people who are still driving when their competency is most likely compromised. They should report an admission to hospital, prescribed medication or a specific diagnosis to the DVLA. ERCIM and Technicity both presage the arrival of autonomous vehicles. At present of course an 'intelligent car' depends on the intelligence of the driver. Which is why we get so annoyed when someone drives like an *^%$£!

Driving is a great responsibility and privilege. It is central to who we are, how we define ourselves, our independence, sustaining real social networks and - in my case livelihood. I recognised decades ago there will come a time to hand over the keys. Doing so gracefully, informed by insight and self-awareness is the trick. I don't envy family doctors who have to deal with this when a patient  insists that they are safe behind the wheel. Sometimes we are ageist, hoping that a meeting with their doctor of some 20-30 years might carry some gravitas that their generation will still respond to. Add to this though that the person concerned is not always elderly. It can be very difficult for the driver (person, patient) concerned and their families too. Amid all this, as a community nurse you are trying to establish trust, empathy and rapport. Each time this issue is encountered: it is novel.

I don't want to suggest that suddenly the person behind the wheel is 'unintelligent', far from it. Evidence shows that a diagnosis of dementia does not immediately mean surrender of a driver's license. Behind dementia, however lie altered faculties that add up to more than synonyms: cognitive impairment, impaired perception, recall, and decision making, reduced concentration and attention. I thought there might be something in this issue of ERCIM related to dementia; monitoring the physiological state of the driver, reactions, attention, stress levels, eye movement. Is there a signature for health in driving behaviours?

Unlike other methods of detecting tiredness, the Mercedes-Benz system evaluates a series of indicators in order to assess the alertness of the driver and to recognise the gradual transition between being awake and being tired. AME.info

Our sense of being, of personhood is heightened by movement. When do we feel most alive? What is the most important factor in health and well-being? There are moments when we are stationary and time passes us by. There are other occasions when we move through time. We literally project our ego through time. We enjoy sharing with friends where will be in the future and when we can also suspend time. Cars and air travel extend these abilities, AND mobilities.

The danger is when we pass through not only time but distance at speed without a reliable sense of judgement, without a wholly coherent sense of self and responsibility.

In the not too distant future all this of course could lead us to a new definition of self-care at least in this context?

"Self-care - put your trust in a self-driving vehicle"

 SOME PAPERS via Athens: (other suggestions welcome)

Title: Driving and dementia: what nurses need to know.

Citation: Journal of Gerontological Nursing, Aug 2011, vol. 37, no. 8, p. 10-13, 0098-9134 (August 2011)

Author(s): Flanagan, Nina M.

Source: BNI

---

Title: Driving with dementia.

Citation: Nursing in the Community, Jan 2005, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 27., 1649-0657 (Jan-Feb 2005)

Source: BNI

---

Title: Transitions in dementia care: theoretical support for nursing roles.

Citation: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, May 2012, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 14 unnumbered pages, 1091-3734 (May 2012)

Author(s): Rose, Karen M*, Lopez, Ruth Palan

Source: BNI

---

Title: Dementia and driving: screening, assessment and advice.

Citation: Lancet, Oct 1996, vol. 348, no. 9035, p. 1114., 0140-6736 (October 26, 1996)

Author(s): O'Neill, D

Source: BNI

---

Title: Imposed versus involved: different strategies to effect driving cessation in cognitively impaired older adults.

Citation: Geriatric Nursing, Mar 2005, vol. 26, no. 2, p. 111-116, 0197-4572 (Mar-Apr 2005)

Author(s): Jett, K, Tappen, R, Rosselli, M

Source: BNI

---

Title: A prospective study of cognitive tests to predict performance on a standardised road test in people with dementia.

Citation: International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, May 2010, vol. 25, no. 5, p. 489-496, 0885-6230 (May 2010)

Author(s): Lincoln, N, Taylor, J, Vella, K

Source: BNI

---

Title: Effects of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment on driving ability: a controlled clinical study by simulated driving test.

Citation: International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 01 March 2009, vol./is. 24/3(232-238), 08856230

Author(s): Frittelli C, Borghetti D, Iudice G, Bonanni E, Maestri M, Tognoni G, Pasquali L, Iudice A

Source: CINAHL

---

Title: A community based survey of cognitive functioning, highway-code performance and traffic accidents in a cohort of older drivers.

Citation: International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 01 March 2009, vol./is. 24/3(247-253), 08856230

Author(s): Ingley S, Chinnaswamy S, Devakumar M, Bell D, Tranter R

Source: CINAHL

Additional links:
Alzheimer’s Society - Driving and dementia
DVLA, UK Guide to the current medical standards of fitness to drive
The University of Nottingham - Predicting fitness to drive speed = (total distance traveled)/(total time taken)

'Holistic reform of education' in Jordan (an eastern dose of serendipity)

View from The Citadel, Amman 23 April 2013

Yesterday morning I arrived back safe and sound from Amman in Jordan, via Istanbul through to Manchester and full of new experiences and learning. I say 'safe and sound' because travel to the region is clearly not a matter of routine given ongoing events. Checking governmental advice in the UK it becomes a question of personal evaluation as was the unexpected trip to Colombia in 2011. Once the non-trivial decision is out of the way ... Jordan's nursing and educational communities provide a truly remarkable welcome and experience. Not only that, but the kingdom of Jordan and the people have so much to offer in their culture, history, hospitality and engagement.

Returning on Thursday from a full day's trip to Petra - amazing! - I asked for an English language paper to read at the hotel before leaving for the airport. I was provided with a copy of The Jordan Times to accompany a cappuccino^*. On page nine Mona Smadi,^# Asst. Professor, Al Balqa Applied University) wrote an opinion piece on Holistic reform of education. The opening sentence enabled my brain to reconnect with my legs (although I would have gladly walked back through the valley):

A holistic perception of reality means having a vision of the context of the constituent fragments and thereby gaining a clearer perception of the reality in its totality.

Prof. Smadi's focus is children's education and curriculum reform. The overlap between children's education, the professor's concerns and nursing is not limited to how curricula are designed and who owns them. Is, for example, the curriculum centered on the student as an individual nurse, or child? If nurses are to be able to integrate their learning and effectively negotiate the emotional and ethical spaces they find themselves in then when is this deeper thinking to start?

Petra 25 April 2013

Not surprisingly there was a lot of talk about this at the JNC conference. The theory - practice gap is not just alive and kicking there is an echo off the seemingly disparate walls. Given too the debate in the UK about student nurses spending time as a health care assistant before starting their formal nurse education. The word applied in the title of Prof. Smadi's university's is interesting. We are accustomed to applied mathematics, ethics, energy and of course applied nursing research and many other examples?

What of applied nursing - does that make sense? Or is there a circularity of sorts in nursing applied? I will check my notes as this point was raised in conference regards to evidence based care and evidence based practice.

Prof. Smadi's referring to a 'clearer perception' can also be extended to recognition of patterns, contexts and situations that are 'hot' in how they relate to values.

(There are a couple of points to add here which I will get too).


There was another serving of serendipity to add to that at Le Meridien, soon after rejoining the land of the virtual I came across the UK Department of Education's Preparing for Adulthood initiative on twitter. If you read the brief article by Prof. Smadi you will see how the two are closely related. Do lifestyles and family life today for many compromise the ability of families to teach moral values to children? As noted in the text this then becomes a critical role for education. In westernized cultures is this one of the qualities referred to in the saying of 'spending quality time' with the family? An acknowledgement of a deficit?

Source: http://www.preparingforadulthood.org.uk/

Vital and complex work in two senses. On the one hand cultures try to understand themselves; and on the other, they seek to understand the other others out there: now not so far away. The patterns that are realised be they mosaic, prayers, celtic knot, tartan, languages, landscapes - rock cut architecture - sculpture; these patterns work, that is 'make a difference' by virtue of both the detail and the whole.

"Petra is half-built, half-carved into the rock ..." UNESCO.

^#If I have not used the proper name and title I will edit this accordingly asap upon advice.
 
^*Why not an Arabic coffee? Well I had one the day before. What can I say... It was different in the preparation, being an observation as in so many cultural patterns (tea). I would like to think I will have another one day. The key thing is I did not necessarily want to have the capability to run to the airport at 11pm, or back to Petra for that matter.

KT EQUAL event 'Design ahead: design for an ageing population'

Dear KT EQUAL Supporters,

We are pleased to announce the latest KT EQUAL event entitled 'Design ahead: design for an ageing population' to be held on Friday 2nd March 2012 at the Innovation Centre, Bath.

We have an ageing population, but a reducing health and social care budget. Increasingly individuals will be expected to self-purchase products and services that will allow them to live independently. This will provide a large ‘silver’ consumer market for products that are designed and priced appropriately. Although there is some awareness amongst industry of this market opportunity, there is significant scope for more inclusive design of mainstream products that enhance independent livening or support specific living tasks and activities.

In collaboration with KT EQUAL, ALAN (Assisted Living Action Network) will jointly host this event to raise awareness of the scale of the market opportunity; explore the needs of this population; how they are translated into design requirements to drive product innovation; and what kinds of design tools and approaches can support design for an aging population. The event will bring together commercial partners, users and academics.

Please find a provisional programme for 2nd March here.

In addition to the conference, there will be an evening three course dinner and networking reception on Thursday 1st March. Both events will be held at the Innovation Centre in Bath.

To register for the conference and / or dinner, please visit:

http://assistedlivingaction.net/index.php/events/designing-ahead-mainstream-design-for-an-ageing-population/

£80 conference and dinner
£50 conference only

There are limited spaces for the networking dinner, so please register quickly.

Regards,

Heather Williams
Project Officer (KT EQUAL)
University of Bath
_______________________________________________
Sparc-network mailing list <Sparc-network@lists.reading.ac.uk>
http://www.lists.rdg.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/sparc-network