What is your role within the Academic Collaborative Centre related to people with PIMD?

As a senior researcher, I conduct research on the relation between culture and the wellbeing (or ‘positive health’) of persons with PIMD and their loved ones. This line of research focuses on ways in which interactive forms of culture – such as singing, making music, dancing or doing arts and crafts together – can enable persons with PIMD to express how they feel, and to improve affective interactions with their families, caretakers and friends.

What do you hope to achieve?

Culture is a powerful tool to communicate complicated things like emotions or identity. Culture is therefore more than entertainment or pastime: it can help people with expressing how they feel in a profound way, also when words are lacking. I hope this research agenda will contribute to improving the social and affective relations between persons with PIMD, their caretakers and their loved ones. The goal of the research is to create useful and effective instruments with a low threshold, to be used in practice. To guarantee this, it is important to work closely together with care professionals, family and friends of persons with PIMD.