Horizon Europe In-Touch project brings global experts to UCC

14 Mar 2024

In-Touch project set to enhance lives of people with dementia living in care homes 

University College Cork (UCC) recently hosted the ‘kick-off’ meeting for the Horizon Europe funded In-Touch project bringing together consortium members from across the EU and Canada. 

Professor John Cryan, Vice-President for Research and Innovation at UCC officially opened the event which saw consortium members spend two days discussing the planned intervention and cluster randomised control trial for the In-Touch project set to enhance the lives of people with advanced dementia living in care homes. This will be achieved through a multisensory care programme approach to improve dignity and quality of life, whilst also supporting family decision making regarding end-of-life care.

Awarded €7.5 million in Horizon Europe funding, the In-Touch project is coordinated by UCC Principal Investigators Professor Nicola Cornally (School of Nursing and Midwifery) and Professor Suzanne Timmons (School of Medicine).

It involves an international consortium of 13 partners from across the EU, UK and Canada. Representatives from all partner organisations, as well as patient and public representatives of people with dementia and family members, gathered in UCC for the two days sharing ideas, and thinking together about the most effective strategy to complete this pioneering project.

In-Touch will run over five years from 2024 to 2028 and will establish a trial in 56 care homes across seven countries focussed on dementia palliative care including pain and symptom management, staff capabilities, polypharmacy and decision-making ensuring that residents with dementia receive optimal palliative care.

Dementia is the leading cause of disability and dependency in older adults affecting almost 8 million people in the European Union and is expected to nearly double by 2050 to over 14 million people. Many people with advanced dementia live in care homes, and many of them may have unmet palliative care needs.

The intervention being explored in this trial builds on the work of the previous EU Joint Programme for Neurodegenerative Disease funded “mySupport” project which developed a family decision support tool, now further complemented by the addition of a personalised multi-sensory activity component, known as Namaste Care, for people with advanced dementia.

Professor Nicola Cornally explained: “The kick-off meeting at UCC enabled the In-Touch consortium to come together and work through the research plans for this project over the next five years. Everyone was highly engaged and there was great energy across the two days which saw researchers, experts-by-experience, educators and practitioners discuss the methodological and ethical challenges and opportunities of implementing In-Touch in nursing homes across Europe. We are confident that this project will yield significant advancements in dementia palliative care research and practice”.

Helen Rochford-Brennan (Person living with Dementia and Patient Public Involvement representative) said: Engaging with researchers from seven different countries allowed for a comprehensive discussion on the challenges inherent in implementing research findings to effect meaningful change in long-term care settings. The potential positive impact on the quality of life for those receiving palliative care can be profound. Personally, I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to contribute from the perspective of someone living with dementia to the research process and collaborate with such esteemed researchers.”

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Web: https://palliativeprojects.eu/in-touch/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/InTouchEU

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/in-touch-horizon-europe/