Online international Homeside meeting March 1-3, 2021

The international Homeside team had a productive meeting March 1-3, 2021. The meeting marked the beginning of the study’s second half period. The host for this 6th international meeting was the Norwegian team at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Opening presentations

Principal Peter Tornquist at the Norwegian Academy of Music opened the meeting and welcomed everyone to Oslo and the digital format. The academy’s Vice Principal for Research and Artistic Development professor Darla Crispin opened the PhD day which involved presentations from six of the seven PhD students in Homeside.

In her opening presentation, the International leader of Homeside, professor Felicity Baker, thanked everyone for the way the team has dealt with the pandemic and the massive impact it has had on the study. Felicity gave an overview of the project while also looking at some interesting preliminary tendencies in the data as well as pointing at some variations among the countries. Homeside has now recruited 35 % of the target participants and is in a good flow in all five countries. As a result of the online implementation, the development of a Homeside App is also in progress.

The International leader of Homeside, professor Felicity Baker, presents the development of the Homeside App.

Data updates

Health economist and data manager Tanara Sousa presented an overview of the progress of the Homeside database and elaborated on tendencies in the data across the countries. Biostatistician Karen Lamb gave an update from the statistical team, focusing on the statistical analysis plan and data monitoring.

Homeside in context

On the final day of the meeting Trine Holt Edwin from Oslo University Hospital and the Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Ageing and Health held a lecture on the project  “Trail-dem: trajectories and risk factors of dementia progression”. Trine is a PhD student in the project and she introduced results from three of the articles in her thesis. Her results offered interesting insights to contextualise the Homeside study.

Trine Holt Edwin

There were close to 50 participants at some points of the meeting. Many of them were moved by the Norwegian Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) member Eva Haukedalen. She spoke openly about her life with her husband who is living with dementia and how they both have enjoyed playing music together – but also what challenges they have met during the progression of dementia. Her talk was an important reminder of the significance of a study like Homeside and the person-centred perspective emphasising individual tailoring of the intervention.