Contraceptive choices for women with learning disabilities

‘Contraceptive choices for women with learning disabilities’ is an Open University research project, supported by a grant from Open Society Foundations (Grant No: OR2014-12989). This inclusive project set out to explore women’s contraceptive decision-making and sought to include women with mild to moderate learning disabilities as well as women with high support needs. Between December 2014 and April 2015 we interviewed 19 women living in several locations across the United Kingdom

Silica bioreplication preserves three-dimensional spheroid structures of human pluripotent stem cells and HepG2 cells

Three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures produce more in vivo-like multicellular structures such as spheroids that cannot be obtained in two-dimensional (2D) cell cultures. Thus, they are increasingly employed as models for cancer and drug research, as well as tissue engineering. It has proven challenging to stabilize spheroid architectures for detailed morphological examination. Here we overcome this issue using a silica bioreplication (SBR) process employed on spheroids formed from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells cultured in the nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC) hydrogel. The cells in the spheroids are more round and tightly interacting with each other than those in 2D cultures, and they develop microvilli-like structures on the cell membranes as seen in 2D cultures. Furthermore, SBR preserves extracellular matrix-like materials and cellular proteins. These findings provide the first evidence of intact hPSC spheroid architectures and similar fine structures to 2D-cultured cells, providing a pathway to enable our understanding of morphogenesis in 3D cultures.Peer reviewe

Contraceptive choices for women with learning disabilities

This article reports the results of interviews with 19 women with learning disabilities about their experiences of making decisions about contraception. It builds upon an online survey conducted with third parties who were close to women with learning disabilities, such as family members, professionals and advocates, that was carried out in 2012. The research team adopted a flexible approach to interviewing, following the preferences of the women, for example making sure they had a friend or staff member with them if that was what they preferred. The research revealed that many of the women used contraception to manage menstruation; twelve had not been given sufficient information to make informed choices about their contraception; many had been subject to persuasion by others to start using a particular contraceptive; and reviews of the efficacy of the contraceptive to manage menstrual pain were rare. There is a clear case for more research that focuses on the direct experiences of women in this area. There also needs to be a greater awareness among health professionals of the need to be proactive in providing advice and ensuring that contraceptive use and choices receive regular review

The experiences of women with learning disabilities on contraception choice

A team from the Open University interviewed women with learning disabilities on their experiences of making decisions about contraception. The research revealed that many women used contraception to manage menstruation, some did not know the medication they were using to manage menstruation was a contraceptive and most lacked sufficient information to make informed choices about contraception. Women were often persuaded by others to start using a particular contraceptive. Health professionals need to be proactive in providing education, information and advice, and in ensuring that contraceptive use is reviewed regularly

Between speaking out in public and being person-centred: collaboratively designing an inclusive archive of learning disability history

The Living Archive of Learning Disability History is being developed by an inclusive team of researchers both with and without learning disabilities. We argue the archive is important in making publicly visible the lives of people with learning disabilities. Yet – drawing on thinking that came out of our collaborative workshops – we also identify alternative imperatives, that you might want to have control over how you share your personal memories and stories, with whom, when you share them and for how long. We show how we are responding to these different ideas in the design of the Living Archive in order to create pathways between two traditions that have emerged through self-advocacy: ‘speaking out in public’ and ‘being person-centred’. We outline our research on consent processes to ensure that our archive builds capacity for as many people as possible to consent while also offering a legally compliant ‘Best Interests’ process in line with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act, England and Wales (2005). We argue that deploying and actively navigating between the different political logics of ‘speaking out in public’ and ‘being person-centred’ offers a way forward for ongoing debates concerning community engagement in archives, museums and heritage