Anthropology graduate research is often associated with remote jungle villages but for 11 UBC students the research site was a lot closer to home -- Purdy Pavilion, the extended care unit at UBC Hospital.
"This is another culture that most students have never set foot in," says Anthropology Assoc. Prof. Janice Graham. "It's as exotic as going to New Guinea."
The students in Graham's course, Anthropology 516: Qualitative Methods in Anthropology, come from disciplines ranging from planning to nursing. They conducted a comprehensive qualitative study at the unit that focused on how to provide a quality environment for residents, most of whom have dementia.
The unit is home to 44 residents and in February will be officially recognized as an interdisciplinary clinical, teaching and research unit (CTRU) model of extended care for people with dementia.
"These residents are really us in another 40 years or so," says Graham, a medical anthropologist who specializes in gerontology. "The students gained practical ethnographic experience -- better than anything I could tell them about how individual lives are the central focus in an institution."
Students participated in residents' care over a six- to eight-week period. Their individual research projects looked at issues such as compassionate and ethical care, flexibility of environment, spiritual needs and what constitutes competence in people with cognitive and functional deterioration.
"Society tends to forget these people," says Louise Racine, a course participant who is working on a PhD in Nursing. "I learned that it's important to care for those less powerful in society -- it was a different aspect of nursing care than I had seen before."
Staff on the unit made students very welcome which assisted their work, adds Racine.
"It was an intense experience for me," says Rosa Sevy, a History master's degree student. "I learned a lot about life -- the residents' stories touched me. There were many emotional issues."
Students reported their findings in a public presentation to residents, family and staff and offered a nine-page list of recommendations to the CTRU steering committee.
"The real value of this new unit will be academics and clinicians working together on day-to-day issues," says Dr. Martha Donnelly, head of Community Geriatrics in the Family Practice Dept. "We want to know how nurses, social workers, doctors, therapists -- everyone involved with the patient -- can work better as a team to care for these people."
Dementia may result from a variety of causes, says Donnelly. Multiple strokes, Alzheimer's disease, alcoholism and brain injury can contribute to or cause the disorder.
About 250,000 people in Canada suffer from dementia and about half are institutionalized.