Being well, being musical: Music composition as a resource and occupation for older people

Introduction: Participatory music making for older people has tended to focus on singing and performance. In a community music project undertaken by Manchester Camerata (a chamber orchestra), Blacon Community Trust and a small group of older adults, participants were given the opportunity to compose individual pieces of music interactively with professional musicians. This paper reports the findings of the research project. Method: An arts-based research method was adopted and incorporated action research and interpretive interactionism to articulate the experiences and perceptions of participants. Participants and Manchester Camerata musicians also worked together to represent the thematic findings of the research in a group composition. Findings: The findings demonstrate that individual and group music composition contributed to a sense of wellbeing through control over musical materials, opportunities for creativity and identity making, validation of life experience and social engagement with other participants and professional musicians. Conclusion: The results emphasised occupation as essential to health and wellbeing in the later stages of life. The findings also highlight the particularly innovative aspects of this research: (i) the use of music composition as a viable arts-in-health occupation for older people and (ii) the arts-based research method of group composition

A conceptual study of spirituality in selected writings of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze

Several authors have noted that one of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s aims was to dissolve the mind–body dualism, typical of Cartesianism. However, there has been little research on the spirit–body connection, as it appears in Jaques-Dalcroze’s writings. The purpose of this document analysis is to understand how a hermeneutic phenomenological model for spirituality in music education can inform our understanding of spirituality in selected writings by Jaques-Dalcroze. In the adapted model holism, balance, aesthetic experience, and movement in time, space, and with energy emerged as core concepts. This gives us a much richer understanding of the Dalcroze approach than has hitherto been available and adds to a growing narrative about the spiritual as it pertains to Jaques-Dalcroze and the approach he initiated

Attitudes, barriers and motivators as factors for sustainability of higher education e-Learning programmes at Universidade Aberta, Portugal

In higher education distance learning institutions, where studies are carried on through a variety of distance learning regimes, from the correspondence and earlier forms of distance education to fully online e-learning programmes, and where planners and administrators seize the effective adoption and deployment of technology-enabled education, student attitude and motivation assume considerable significance. Attitudinal pre-dispositions, institutional and allied barriers (including appropriate policy initiatives), besides the scientific and pedagogical quality of degree programmes are assumed to play a crucial role in sustainability of higher education systems. This article reports the findings of a study conducted at Universidade Aberta, Portugal—the Portuguese Distance Learning Education University—to examine student attitudes towards e-learning and to identify barriers and motivators of e-learning adoption, which are key factors for decreasing dropout rates of a 2nd cycle degree e-learning programme, analysed as a case study

Visualising harms in publications of randomised controlled trials: consensus and recommendations

Objective To improve communication of harm in publications of randomised controlled trials via the development of recommendations for visually presenting harm outcomes. Design Consensus study. Setting 15 clinical trials units registered with the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, an academic population health department, Roche Products, and TheBMJ. Participants Experts in clinical trials: 20 academic statisticians, one industry statistician, one academic health economist, one data graphics designer, and two clinicians. Main outcome measures A methodological review of statistical methods identified visualisations along with those recommended by consensus group members. Consensus on visual recommendations was achieved (at least 60% of the available votes) over a series of three meetings with participants. The participants reviewed and critically appraised candidate visualisations against an agreed framework and voted on whether to endorse each visualisation. Scores marginally below this threshold (50-60%) were revisited for further discussions and votes retaken until consensus was reached. Results 28 visualisations were considered, of which 10 are recommended for researchers to consider in publications of main research findings. The choice of visualisations to present will depend on outcome type (eg, binary, count, time-to-event, or continuous), and the scenario (eg, summarising multiple emerging events or one event of interest). A decision tree is presented to assist trialists in deciding which visualisations to use. Examples are provided of each endorsed visualisation, along with an example interpretation, potential limitations, and signposting to code for implementation across a range of standard statistical software. Clinician feedback was incorporated into the explanatory information provided in the recommendations to aid understanding and interpretation. Conclusions Visualisations provide a powerful tool to communicate harms in clinical trials, offering an alternative perspective to the traditional frequency tables. Increasing the use of visualisations for harm outcomes in clinical trial manuscripts and reports will provide clearer presentation of information and enable more informative interpretations. The limitations of each visualisation are discussed and examples of where their use would be inappropriate are given. Although the decision tree aids the choice of visualisation, the statistician and clinical trial team must ultimately decide the most appropriate visualisations for their data and objectives. Trialists should continue to examine crude numbers alongside visualisations to fully understand harm profiles.</p