New publication on including people with communication difficulties in health research

Dr Rebecca Palmer and Gail Paterson developed methods to include people with communication difficulties in a project Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) group to help advise on project materials, recruitment of people with communication disorders and dissemination of project results in formats suitable for people with reduced written and spoken comprehension.

A paper about the methods to facilitate the inclusion of people with communication disorders was written by the research team with contributions from the PPI group members. The paper was published in Nurse Researcher in January:

Palmer R, Paterson, G (2013) To what extent can people with communication difficulties contribute to health research? Nurse Researcher. 20, 3, 12-16.

A film showing a verbal presentation of this work and interviews with the PPI group members is also available from the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) South Yorkshire website.

Our mission

Many groups of people, including older and disabled people, and people with long-term conditions, can increasingly be assisted to live independently in their own homes, supported by new developments in technology. Under the broad heading of Assistive Technologies, these include rehabilitation technologies, telecare, telehealth and electronic assistive technology.

With an ageing population, and a rising number of people with long-term conditions, more people will in future require such support to enable them to live with independence and dignity in their own homes and communities. Research and innovation is required to develop new user-friendly technologies and technology-supported services and to build an evidence base for their use. This is the mission of the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Research Group.

Here's Mark Hawley, the head of the RAT group, explaining a bit more about what we do...