Professor Gail Mountain

Gail's research interests are focussed upon improving the quality of life of older people through provision of appropriate interventions, good design and by facilitating participation. I am particularly interested in improving the lived experiences of people at all stages of the dementia trajectory.

Projects

Current and recent projects

• Dementia Outcome Measures: charting new territory. Joint programme for Neurodegenerative Disease Research; working groups to inform cohort studies in neurodegenerative research, 49,462.00 euro (PI).
• What services can support people with early stage dementia? :evidence and knowledge review and survey to inform local service development. Additional funding via CLAHRC, £27,495.72 (PI).
• Dementia, Cognition and Care Collaboration. White Rose Network funding, £10,910 (lead)
• Promoting independence in dementia PRIDE, ESRC/NIHR dementia initiative, £3,6000,000 (Co-I).
• Interventions to promote or maintain physical activity during and after the transition to retirement: evidence synthesis to inform recommendations for policy and practice. NIHR Public Health Board, £205,532 (Co-I).
• NIHR Collaboration for applied health research and care Yorkshire and Humber. £10M (Co-I for technology and frailty themes).
• ICT leisure activities for people with dementia (DigIT). Social Care Institute for Excellence, £30,000 (Co-I).
• Service evaluation of PARO seal robot. Sheffield Health and Social Care Foundation Trust: £10,000 (PI).
• Abbeyfield Trust PhD studentship to research Telemedicine in care homes.
• White Rose ESRC funded network MARWEN.
• Lead for PIPIN (Promoting independence through personalised interactive technologies) PhD student network University of Sheffield Digital World cross cutting initiative.
• Valuing active life in dementia (VALID). National Institute for Health Research Programme Grant: £2,300,000 (Co-Investigator). This project will commence in 2012. It is concerned with the transferability of a well reported Dutch occupational therapy intervention into a UK context and the clinical and cost effectiveness of delivery.
• Lifestyle Matters: Randomised controlled trial. MRC Lifelong Health and Wellbeing: £1,131,276.80 (Principal Investigator). The Lifestyle Matters project commenced in 2011 with duration of over four years. Project partners are at Bangor University. The aim is to examine the impact of the Lifestyle Matters intervention upon the mental well being of volunteer participants aged 65 years and over six months after cessation of delivery and two years later.
• Putting Life in Years (PLINY). Randomised controlled trial of telephone friendship groups for people aged 75 years and over. National Institute for Health Research Public Health Board: £813,000.00 (Principal Investigator). This three year project started in 2011. It involves examining the benefits of telephone conferencing with older people with the intervention being delivered through the charitable sector. Our third sector partners AgeUK National, AgeUK Sheffield and the Community Network are working alongside the research team to introduce and deliver this intervention.
• The Script project; (supervised care and rehabilitation involving personal telerobotics). EU STREP: 3,311,998 euro (Co-Investigator). The project is being led by University of Hertfordshire and also includes partners in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. The aim is to develop and test two robotic systems to facilitate in-home upper limb rehabilitation following stroke.
• Overcoming barriers to mainstreaming Assisted Living Technologies ESRC and TSB ALIP programme: £1,800,000 (Co-Investigator). My role is to work with commissioners, health care practitioners, providers, end users of service and their carers to understand barriers to adoption and introduce and evaluate interventions to try and overcome them.
• Richard project: regional ICT based clusters for healthcare applications and R&D integration. EU FP7: 2,749,999.68 euro (Named Collaborator). This project with partners in Italy and Poland involves mapping Telehealth / Telecare initiatives and identifying future research agendas.
• K-T Equal: Bringing ageing and disability research into practice. EPSRC: 1,833,000 (Principle Director). The Consortium is working to ensure that the products from research on ageing are implemented in practice and also that the views of older people are incorporated into new research agendas The Consortium has a membership of around 3,000 individuals and organisations. www.equal.ac.uk.
• South Yorkshire Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care; Technologies for management of long term conditions – fitness for purpose, evidence and potential for the future. NIHR: £1,900,000 (Co-theme lead with Professor Mark Hawley). This programme of translational research involves research and implementation themes spanning topics concerned with people with long term conditions. The technology theme (TaCT) is exploring new innovations as well as the effectiveness of established technologies in practice. http://clahrc-sy.nihr.ac.uk/theme-tact-introduction.html
• The Future Bathroom: a study of design issues for people with age related disability. EPSRC: £450,000 (Co Investigator). This project is being led by the Design Research Centre, Sheffield HallamUniversity and has involved older people as co-researchers. It has resulted in a number of innovative prototypes that are now under evaluation. http://www.lab4living.org.uk/future-bathroom.
• SMART2: self management assisted by rehabilitation and telecare technologies. EPSRC EQUAL5: £2,300,000 (Consortium Director). The SMART2 project is concerned with integrating and developing commonly encountered technologies into a common, intelligent platform to assist people with stroke, congestive heart failure and chronic pain to self manage. www.thesmartconsortium.org.