Improving aged care with memory conversations. This project aims to investigate conversational techniques known as "elaborative reminiscing" as a tool for aged care staff to practice relationship-based care in their day-to-day interactions with older clients. The project expects to generate new knowledge about which specific techniques increase reminiscing during routine care, and how these tools have ongoing benefits for aged care clients. Expected outcomes include an evidence-based training pr ....Improving aged care with memory conversations. This project aims to investigate conversational techniques known as "elaborative reminiscing" as a tool for aged care staff to practice relationship-based care in their day-to-day interactions with older clients. The project expects to generate new knowledge about which specific techniques increase reminiscing during routine care, and how these tools have ongoing benefits for aged care clients. Expected outcomes include an evidence-based training program and improved understanding of facilitators and barriers to meeting aged care clients' social needs. This should provide significant benefits by improving wellbeing of clients in aged care, reducing hospitalisations, and enabling aged care providers to meet new industry standards.Read moreRead less
Ageing, trust, and financial exploitation: social, emotional and cognitive mechanisms. This project aims to understand how age-related differences in the processing of social and emotional information contribute to the exploitation of older adults' trust. This research will examine deception detection during financial negotiations and provide new strategies for ensuring the financial independence and well-being of older Australians.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100396
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$342,000.00
Summary
What are the active ingredients of successful shared remembering? Older couples remember more together than apart, but little is known about mechanisms underlying such collaborative benefits. Collaborative remembering may have therapeutic value in age-related cognitive decline and dementia, providing cost-effective, readily-available memory support. However there are several 'active ingredients' that may underlie collaborative benefits and not all of these will be equally effective or translatab ....What are the active ingredients of successful shared remembering? Older couples remember more together than apart, but little is known about mechanisms underlying such collaborative benefits. Collaborative remembering may have therapeutic value in age-related cognitive decline and dementia, providing cost-effective, readily-available memory support. However there are several 'active ingredients' that may underlie collaborative benefits and not all of these will be equally effective or translatable into therapy. This project aims to identify and evaluate these active ingredients, teasing apart 'what', 'who' and 'how'. Testing younger and older couples, healthy and in early stages of decline, this project aims to generate new knowledge and provide a basis for future therapies utilising collaborative remembering.Read moreRead less
Is it better to remember with others or to remember alone, especially as we age? This project aims to investigate if remembering with a long-term partner, recalling daily tasks, or reminiscing about their shared past, benefits memory in younger and older adults. This project will identify the strategies that spouses use to help each other remember and minimise memory loss, especially as they age and their memories start to fail.
Why remembering together is crucial as we age. This project will test whether remembering everyday information or important past events with a long-term partner compensates for, predicts and/or reduces the risk of memory and cognitive decline. The project will identify and then target for treatment the strategies that spouses use to help each other remember, especially as they age and memory starts to fail.
Investigating the characteristics of older adults' conversation behaviour. The project aims to determine the factors that negatively impact older adults’ ability to engage in conversation. This is an important health issue; conversations are essential for communicating needs and maintaining social links; reduced social engagement leads to serious health problems and anticipates cognitive decline. The project will compile profiles of older adults' auditory-visual conversation behavior and indices ....Investigating the characteristics of older adults' conversation behaviour. The project aims to determine the factors that negatively impact older adults’ ability to engage in conversation. This is an important health issue; conversations are essential for communicating needs and maintaining social links; reduced social engagement leads to serious health problems and anticipates cognitive decline. The project will compile profiles of older adults' auditory-visual conversation behavior and indices of perceptual, cognitive and social skills. A path model will link these data to ratings of social engagement and satisfaction. By identifying factors leading to low ranked conversations, evidence-based guidelines can be developed for older adults and their carers to enhance communication and improve health and well-being.Read moreRead less
Designing a Holistic Model of Advice to Improve Retirement Planning. We aim to improve retirement planning through the design and application of a new model integrating financial advice with career and health planning to optimise financial and psychological outcomes. We will test a multidisciplinary, holistic model of advice combining specialist knowledge in careers, health, and finances. Expected outcomes of the project include evaluating the use of a broader range of experts during retirement ....Designing a Holistic Model of Advice to Improve Retirement Planning. We aim to improve retirement planning through the design and application of a new model integrating financial advice with career and health planning to optimise financial and psychological outcomes. We will test a multidisciplinary, holistic model of advice combining specialist knowledge in careers, health, and finances. Expected outcomes of the project include evaluating the use of a broader range of experts during retirement planning and developing a model for the future training and development of financial advisers.By optimising the timing of workplace exit, we aim to decrease reliance on pensions and encourage earlier and on-going engagement in the retirement planning process. This will provide significant social and economic benefits.Read moreRead less
Drivers of ageing and adaptive ageing in middle-aged and older adults. This project aims to answer crucial questions about how our early years influence our health and wellbeing in middle and later life. Drawing on one of Australia’s longest running studies of social and emotional development, we link decades of developmental data collected since 1983 to social, emotional, cognitive and physical wellbeing in participants turning 40 (midlife) and 70 (later life). It will provide insight into impo ....Drivers of ageing and adaptive ageing in middle-aged and older adults. This project aims to answer crucial questions about how our early years influence our health and wellbeing in middle and later life. Drawing on one of Australia’s longest running studies of social and emotional development, we link decades of developmental data collected since 1983 to social, emotional, cognitive and physical wellbeing in participants turning 40 (midlife) and 70 (later life). It will provide insight into important and largely unanswered questions about the way social factors in the first half of life shape our later selves. This study will inform government and health policy targeting ageing populations.
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Is it just a matter of time? Why some people plan and others do not. Differences in planning behaviour can be explained in terms of individual preferences for the past, present or future, or Time Perspective (TP). This project aims to identify why some people fail to plan for retirement using TP as a conceptual framework. Planning for retirement is an economic imperative since sufficient finances reliably predicts retirement adjustment. Despite this, almost one million people currently in the la ....Is it just a matter of time? Why some people plan and others do not. Differences in planning behaviour can be explained in terms of individual preferences for the past, present or future, or Time Perspective (TP). This project aims to identify why some people fail to plan for retirement using TP as a conceptual framework. Planning for retirement is an economic imperative since sufficient finances reliably predicts retirement adjustment. Despite this, almost one million people currently in the labour force have no retirement plans. The project plans to incorporate recent research showing that TP is stable over time and predicts behaviour into a model explaining propensity to plan. Improvements are anticipated in retirement planning, accumulation of resources for retirement and better adjustment benefiting individuals and policy-makers.Read moreRead less
Language typology and cognitive effects of language learning. This project aims to map, in older adults and preschool-age children, the extent and nature of cognitive benefit from training in a foreign language. Learning a language is recognised to be beneficial in various ways, but this project investigates whether it matters which language one learns. The project will compare the resulting cognitive changes to language learners across different languages to test whether the benefit is uniquely ....Language typology and cognitive effects of language learning. This project aims to map, in older adults and preschool-age children, the extent and nature of cognitive benefit from training in a foreign language. Learning a language is recognised to be beneficial in various ways, but this project investigates whether it matters which language one learns. The project will compare the resulting cognitive changes to language learners across different languages to test whether the benefit is uniquely effective. It will also gauge whether these changes occur when learning is easier in childhood compared to when it is harder later in life. The project findings will inform the development of linguistic, social, and educational programs to optimise cognitive function both for childhood development and healthy ageing, especially in Australia where second language acquisition is lower compared to other countries.Read moreRead less