BACKGROUND In healthcare, the focus is currently shifting from someone's disabilities to someone's abilities, which is also evident from the increasing focus on vitality. Vitality (here defined as energy, motivation and resilience) is an often used concept, which also aims at someone's capabilities. However, little is known about vitality yet; in particular about its association with participat...

Inclusive, unconstrained and honest communication is widely advocated as beneficial and ethical. We critically explore this assumption by reflecting upon our research in acute care, informal care and public health. Using Habermas' ideals of dialogue to conceptualise ideal speech, we concur with observations that health care is often characterised by intractable exclusions and constraints. Rathe...

The financial, opportunity and social costs and benefits of providing informal support to frail older people are described within an economic framework. Mentally and}or physically frail older people were identified through screening interviews with random community samples of people aged  and over in four UK areas :  frail older people living in private households nominated key informal su...

Recent spending cuts in the area of adult social care raise policy concerns about the proportion of older people whose need for social care is not being met. Such concerns are emphasised in the context of population ageing and other demographic changes. For example, the increasing proportion of the population aged 75 and over places greater pressure on formal and informal systems of care and su...

BACKGROUND Increased life expectancy has resulted in a greater provision of informal care within the community for patients with chronic physical health conditions. Informal carers are at greater risk of poor mental health, with one in three informal carers of stroke survivors experiencing depression. However, currently no psychological treatments tailored to the unique needs of depressed infor...

based on existing literature social capital is defined as a set of norms and rules and informal networks that provide association, trust and collective action to obtain the public good. the empowerment projects of world bank that has been implemented in many third world countries in the late 1980s followed by a non-reductionist non- physical approach integration of cultural and socio- economic ...

Communities of Learning Practice is an innovative paradigm focused on providing appropriate technological support to both formal and especially informal learning groups who are chiefly formed by non-technical people and who lack of the necessary resources to acquire such systems. Typically, students who are often separated by geography and/or time have the need to meet each other after classes ...

Purpose – Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty...

Maintaining engagement of large audiences is not easy. Traditionally, lectures and presentations have relied on one-way mmunication from the presenter to the listening audience. Without receiving ongoing feedback, speakers cannot be sure that their delivery is at an appropriate pace, or that their message is being received and understood by their audience. This study suggests using a real-time ...

Purpose – Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty...