Memory is an amazing skill – have you ever noticed that one can very easily forget the details of what happened yesterday, yet clearly remember people or events from many years in the past? We know that our population is ageing, and memory is one of the cognitive skills that can change as we get older.
Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are conducting research to investigate how we might increase our chances of ageing well. Would you be interested to contribute to their research on ageing?
The Memory & Ageing Lab in the School of Psychological Sciences & Health have recently established an Older Adult Participant Panel, for which they are currently recruiting generally healthy and independently living volunteers aged 65 years and over.
Dr Louise Brown, who runs the Panel, primarily investigates issues related to cognitive ageing, such as how our memory and attention skills change throughout the adult lifespan. Her research has been published in book chapters and academic journals, and her work investigating visual short-term memory in older adults has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
There are a range of research interests within the School, however, including groups from Psychology, Physical Activity for Health, Speech & Language Therapy, and Counselling. Other research topics include investigations of motor control in older age, issues related to nutrition and lifestyle, and the social psychology of ageing.
Upon becoming a member of the Panel, participants are occasionally sent invitations to take part in an interesting range of research.
Louise said “The Panel helps us to conduct our research more efficiently, and we also train research students who are interested to study ageing.
Most individual projects require participants to visit us for about 1 hour, and our participants have expressed finding their experiences to be enjoyable and interesting.” Each invitation includes detailed information about that study, and you would never be under any obligation to participate.
To find out more about the School, please visit www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/psychologicalscienceshealth/. To join the Panel and start contributing to ageing research, please contact Dr Louise Brown (l.brown@strath.ac.uk; 0141-548-2661).
