Using creative, sensory and embodied research methods when working with people with dementia: A method story

Background People with dementia are often excluded from research due to ethical concerns and a reliance upon conventional research methods which focus on recall and verbal expression. Methods Creative, sensory and embodied research methods typically involve techniques that conceptually bring individuals “into” the research, thus affording an expressive capacity that traditional methods do not. This paper details a “method story”, presenting three interlinked cycles of study used to explore the significance of clothing to people with dementia living in a care home. The studies drew upon arts-based and design led practices. This paper details the methods used and the opportunities that they presented when exploring the lived experience of dementia. Results and Conclusions Creative, sensory and embodied approaches enabled people with dementia to engage with research, supporting imaginative, spontaneous and flexible participation. This supports the use of novel methods when undertaking research with people who have dementia

Aesthetics and dementia: exploring the role of everyday aesthetics in dementia care settings

This paper explores how everyday aesthetics shape and are shaped within dementia care settings. The authors draw upon research that explored the significance of clothing and textiles in care home settings, to identify the varied and complex aesthetic experiences of people with dementia. The study was carried out using a series of creative, sensory and embodied research methods working with people with dementia and care home staff. Findings demonstrate that aesthetics are important in care homes at a number of levels. People with dementia discussed personal aesthetic preferences and demonstrated such preferences through embodied practices. Attending to aesthetics facilitated moments of togetherness between people with dementia and care home staff, creating person-centred encounters outside task-orientated conversations. This paper supports the importance of everyday aesthetics within dementia care settings and demonstrates that greater attention should be paid to this, to reconsider and enhance not only the look and feel of care homes and everyday items, including clothing, but also dementia care practice more broadly

Embracing complexity within creative approaches to dementia research: ethics, reflexivity, and research practices

In this paper, we present reflections from three research studies that have engaged with creative approaches to qualitative research with people living with dementia. Creative approaches to qualitative research are increasingly advocated within dementia research as they foreground alternative routes to expression and can facilitate flexible, meaningful participation. Such approaches are typically cited as illuminating people’s lived experiences as they often enable nuanced understandings around how people with dementia engage in the world around them. Yet creative approaches to research with people living with dementia involve specific complexities that require rigorous planning, generous timelines, and interdisciplinary research teams. It is important to examine the role of the researcher(s) in the development and application of creative approaches, as this impacts the extent to which the voices and experiences of people living with dementia are authentically heard and felt throughout the research. In this reflective article, we come together as three researchers who have used a range of creative and sensory approaches to understand the everyday lived experiences of people living with dementia in different contexts. We present examples taken from three doctoral research studies in which we navigated the creative research space to ensure the voices of people living with dementia are placed centrally and actively within the research process. We pay particular attention to the creative reflexive processes used in each example and explore what ethical research practices look and feel like in the context of creative research with people living with dementia. Our critical reflections lead us to discuss the opportunities that embracing creative approaches may afford in future research with people living with dementia

‘It’s like... it’s me’: Exploring the lived experience of clothing attachment during wear

Clothing and its intimate proximity to the body and self have been widely explored, and yet there is little psychological research that explores the experience of wearing items of clothing imbued with personal meanings, memories and emotions. This novel study explores the experience of actively worn items of attachment clothing from a psychological perspective. Method: due to a dearth of literature within this area, a qualitative methodology was employed. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used as the focus was to explore details of participants’ experience. A homogenous sample of five participants was used. Participants were asked to wear to the interview a garment that they felt emotionally attached to and was still in use. Semi-structured interviews were used, allowing for flexibility, thus ensuring the elicitation of rich data. Results: findings demonstrated that clothing attachment is a multifaceted and rich phenomenon. The garments were appropriated and imbued with a symbolic resonance that participants accessed through wearing the attachment garment. Conclusion: results link to and extend previous literature on possession attachment and provide nuanced findings that could impact areas within both fashion literature and psychology literature