Call for Papers for the European Design 4 Health Conference 2011 + 6th CIPED

Lab4Living at Sheffield Hallam University is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the  
European Design 4 Health Conference 2011. The conference will be held at Sheffield Hallam University from 13 - 15 July 2011, Sheffield, UK.

The conference will provide a platform for dialogue between designers, healthcare professionals, funding bodies, researchers and users. Submissions to the conference are invited, in the following forms:
Abstract submissions: extended abstracts that address the conference themes.
Exhibition proposals: exhibits of innovative artefacts or systems that make significant progress in design for health.
Visit www.design4health.org.uk . Join the conference mailing list for regular updates.

6º CIPED - Congresso Int. de Pesquisa em Design (6th CIPED - Int. Congress of Research in Design)

- to be held at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, October 10-12, 2011:
An Agenda for Design. More details will be provided later, just keep the dates free!

Professor Peter Lansley, BSc, MSc, PhD, MCIOB, FCOT
Director, KT-EQUAL – Knowledge Transfer for Extending Quality Life
School of Construction Management and Engineering, URS Building,
University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW, UK

p.r.lansley at reading.ac.uk www.sparc.ac.uk (and my source).

Animated Minds - teaching resource

Animated Minds is a series of short animated documentaries which use real testimony from people who have experienced different forms of mental distress. A single aim underpins all the films: to help dispel myths and misconceptions about ‘mental illness' by giving a voice to those who experience these various difficulties first hand.

http://animatedminds.com


My source - post by:
Jill Anderson: j.anderson at lancaster.ac.uk
Mental Health in Higher Education jiscmail list

What's good for art students ....

Never take the stylus or brush
in your hand if you have not first
constituted in your mind all that you have to do.

Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, 1435-36

My source: 16 May 2010, Visit to The British Museum, Italian Renaissance drawings.

Is this my excuse for taking so long with a new website?

Drawing - the stage of conceptual design

The health career model
- drawing -
for health and social care professionals, et al.. ...

"The Italian word for drawing, disegno,
also encapsulates the stage of conceptual design.
The ability to imagine a design
and then develop it on paper was an increasingly valuable skill."

The Purpose of Drawing: The British Museum, May 2010.

Additional link:
Disegno: Italian Fine Art Drawing

My source: 16 May 2010, Visit to The British Museum, Italian Renaissance drawings.

Nursing: Art and Science ... Fra Angelico to Leonardo

I arrived in London at noon in preparation for the Higher Education Academy mental health SIG meeting tomorrow at King's College, which includes a presentation on the health career model.

The afternoon was spent at The British Museum exhibition Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance drawings:



Early in the life of W2tQ visits to the Tate in London and Liverpool prompted a blog post or two.

Visiting this stunning exhibition even before I fastened and feasted on the first drawing, the subtitled walls announced the various exhibition themes and for me instantly suggested links to health care:

Drawing the father of our three arts -
architecture, sculpture and painting
Georgio Vasari. Lives of the Artists, 1568.

sculpture equates to medicine-surgery

painting to nursing

our care models provide the architecture and palette*

We all draw (model) individually in thought and reflection, these are then shared in our various collaborations and engagements, media forms and records.

Do we need a 21st century renaissance
in the study and appreciation of models of care?

Additional links:
Financial Times: Review

*Red, Green, Blue, (Black & White)
There are a few more prospective posts arising from this museum visit - time - will draw them out.

Romeo and Juliet – the care home version

Octogenarian versions of Shakespeare's lovers to feature in Bristol production

Directed By Tom Morris

Fresh from co-directing the West End hit, War Horse, and Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn's orchestral experiment Every Good Boy Deserves Favour at the National Theatre, Tom Morris' own theatrical exploration of Bristol Old Vic begins with a project that has been twelve years in the making: Juliet and Her Romeo, the story of a flourishing love affair in one generation, crushed by the financial and political concerns of another.

Developed since 1997 in collaboration with Minder producer Sean O'Connor, the production uses Shakespeare's text, but casts our lovers in their 80s, with their anxious children, not their parents, seeking to prevent an imprudent and costly match.

With Sian Phillips as Juliet and Michael Byrne as Romeo, this production invites a generation of actors of global stature to play great Shakespearean roles which they never thought they'd play again. Tim Barlow, Terry Taplin and Michael Medwin return to Bristol Old Vic as Tybalt, Benvolio and Paris. Dudley Sutton makes his debut on the Bristol Old Vic stage as Mercutio.

What family has not wrestled with the question of how we care for our parents as they become older and frailer? Who will love them? Who will support them? Who will pay for their care?

And with that care, what controls should we apply? If we have taken power of attorney, what about the freedom to fall in love, to give gifts, to marry unwisely?

As Ben Power's recent two-handed exploration of passionate love remembered in old age demonstrated, Shakespeare's text is a powerful love story for any generation.

Signed, Captioned and Audio Described Performances.

Signed performance: Sat 10 April 2.30pm

Captioned performance: Sat 17 April 2.30pm

Audio described performance: Sat 24 April 2.30pm

Additional link:

BBC Culture Show

Hodges' model: asking for a fight while searching for the cosmic background holistic radiation

There is an awful lot to fight for at the moment; what with the countdown to Copenhagen and the ongoing struggles of the new economic butterfly from its cocoon - its life plainly in the balance - even before its wings have dried.

Meanwhile, in its four quiet corners Hodges' model is also asking for a fight. Now don't panic, the fight in prospect is an orderly, disciplined affair as per Queensberry Rules(?).

Disciplines new and old seek structures upon which to base their questions, hypotheses, methods and theories. This explains in part the structure of Hodges' model. In facilitating holistic and integrated care through:

• personal and group reflection
• cross curricula application
• socio-technical perspectives
• bridging the theory - practice gap
• ....
  

Hodges' model is actually asking us to if not tear down the axes, then at least render them irrelevant.

In the same way (well almost) we now recognise new 'super' structures in cosmology, in time we may realise new semantic - ontological structures across and between the existing humanistic - mechanistic domains of h2cm.

Additional links:
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFCC Copenhagen clocks

Image source: Barnabu - Google Earth add-ons and visualizations. KML, SketchUp and more.

The art and science of nursing: the poetry of caring

Another quote:

... The best translators seem to have an extra ear, indeed, have to have an extra ear, for the literary dimensions and possibilities of their own language. Translation can draw the poet out of someone who may not have realised the poet in himself. The response to poetry is in us all but it takes an extra talent to turn response to invention, to hear and speak echo in a fresh voice. ...


George Szirtes, The Times, Words with a fresh voice, 7 November 2009, p.8.


Original image source with thanks: Alikaragoz.net

h2cm: windows on the mind, body, society and State

h2cm is not just a window and handle on the mind and that of patient's and carer's.

h2cm can reflect (as per its original purposes):

• health and social care policy;
• the aspirations of local care communities and economies;
• signs, symptoms - priorities;
  
• care plans, actions and care pathways;
• research objectives;
• procedures;
• ethical deliberations;
  
• recovery, relapse prevention;
  
• information requirements;
• learning objectives;
• and outcomes.
• ...
  

HOW Hodges' model can achieve this...?

Now that IS the question that can really open the windows, whether you believe in four or five....


Image source: with thanks to - FineArtAmerica.com: and the artist of -
I Marry Your Mind to Lights Window, Stephen Lucas

Foundations, projects, corners and cornerstones

Ok, so you have a new project - that's great!

Yes, we are going to build something - outstanding!

Sounds absolutely marvellous!

We are going to use up-to-the-nanosecond project management tools.

And you're going to do it by the book, charts and real-time tags.

Yes, with a dash of intuition plus - you know - gut instinct!

Well sure, pleased to hear that too.

We will take account of history, learn the lessons -
we've a researcher onboard you know?
Building a world-class team that's all fleet of foot and mind.

We'll tick all the boxes, check all the corners and leave no stone unturned.

Truly admirable, but how many boxes and corners have you got and how many cornerstones* will you need?

Eh?

Hey listen up. Corners are for losers,

naughty children

and people lost in the dark.

Nobody is going to be stuck standing in the corner on this one!

Oh - right.

Well good luck....

Image sources:
'Cornerstone office': Cornerstone Corp. Center
Dan Flavin: at Artnet.
Inspired by the word 'cornerstone' and Untitled (Corner Piece) 1969 on visit to Tate Liverpool, 25 September 2009 (not the piece illustrated above):

Flavin made a number of works intended to be shown in corners, engaging directly with the architecture of the gallery. His use of commonly available fluorescent tubes enabled him to explore light as a non-physical material, animating gallery walls. The size of the work was determined so that the units could be fastened in the centre only, without having to be anchored to the floor. The artist rejected any symbolic significance of the object, insisting that it was simply a form that made good use of a corner.

Question: How many corners are there in Hodges' model?

*Cornerstones: here referring to stakeholders, sponsors, owners, partners, investors, builders, architects, designers...?

Nursing (Health) Art or Science...?

Is nursing an art or science?
It is simply and complexly both ...

"Warp. Weft. Woof! are terms from weaving: the threads or yarns that run lengthwise on the loom are called the warp; the crosswise threads or yarns are called the woof or weft. The web is the name given the completed woven fabric, and it also has wide figurative use: What a tangled web* of circumstance you've woven.
All these are Standard." Ref.

*Also known as the care plan!

Original image source:
http://www.wovenwire.co.uk/plainweave.htm

Additional links:
http://www.africancrafts.com/

Colour my quadrants - theme my domains

Quite a while ago a basic colour scheme emerged for the care domains - quadrants of Hodges' model. It may be useful to explain why these particular colours were adopted.


INTER-INTRAPERSONAL: [mental health, psychology, psychological therapies, philosophy, creativity, theology ...] It is often said that green is a colour that calms people, it is and must remain a constant in our lives and hence in our world. Green reminds us of nature and who we are. There should always be a place for green wherever and whenever we live, for every individual one of us, whether residing in a metropolis, village or wandering across the land, or with no land. We must hope that green (and the blue) will always be.

SCIENCES: [anatomy, physiology, physics, biochemistry, neurology, systems, process ...] Blue is a mystical and spiritual colour. It suggests the metaphysical. It is our ET-ernal umbrella that points the way to the most external other that which is outside and beyond ourselves and our comprehension. Whether it is day, night or the inbetween with the terminator passing overhead it is there - clear sky or rain. It reminds us if you look, listen and feel our frailty, the true position of our laws, preoccupations and the passage of time that we cannot understand. But still we reach out.

POLITICAL: [policy studies, law, democracy, standards, development, activism, governance, citizenry ...] Black and white was adopted here as politics is often portrayed and practiced as being polarised. It is nice (economical of effort) when decisions are literally cast in black and white terms - true or false, yes or no; however, in politics things are never clear cut (especially when claiming expenses). This is another reason for 'black and white'. Not so much for the colours as the pattern they can pose. As posted previously Michel Serres cast Harlequin as a trope for mischief maker (and more) - something we all see in politics - especially at the moment.

SOCIOLOGY: [sociology, patients & carers, the seven ages, collaborative computing, anthropology, history ...] While a warning in nature and many cultures, red was assumed for its warmth. The gathering around the flame of the community, the flame of the hearth. Vibrant. Full of life. This is red. Love, passion and courage you will find here.
Red still stands. No, runs - as a warning. The flame can become a source of chaos in the hands of the mob, when families, peoples and nations fight each other. Red is the ember that is hatred, but red the creative, innovative spark can and will win through. From darkness : To light ...

In the near future I will write more about the positional relationships between the care (knowledge) domains.

What wright to care?

At senior school I had the challenge and pleasure of appearing in Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the age of 15. My part was of course that of Francis Nurse. I can still remember most of my lines [as I didn't have many ;-)]. I have always been interested in drama, but even more so - dialogue, which helps as a member of this family and a mental health care professional.

Over several years, the above plus studies in literature and philosophy prompted me to dabble with dialogues of my own. One from way back when concerned nurse training and virtual environments; while another was set in Athens addressing the impact of informatics upon nursing.

The professionals of dialogue - playwrights - feature on BBC R4 Start The Week and this made me think of another dialogue as I recognised that my colleagues and I are in fact carewrights.

Now though with long term medical conditions, self-care, recovery, personalised care, individualised budgets and other policy permutations we are not just concerned with the words we say. With patients and carers seen and heard as experts no longer are we just putting words into their mouths - they are putting words in ours.

So together -
lets literally go taste the health and social care culture and break a leg!

Image sources:
book cover Amazon
Drama mask image: Saskatchewan Drama Association

Additional links:

Top 30 languages of the world

Top 20 countries by number of languages

International Mother Language Day 21 February

I note there are several instances of 'carewright' as a surname, trade / commercial name - my use and the context should be clear.

Assorted links...

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning

Source: ITForum

Digital art of Pierre Beteille

Source: Twitter

nda News Issue 3: New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme


Wellcome Collection Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings

Source: The Guardian

Anatomy: The Foundation of Medicine
From Aristotle to Early Twentieth Century Wall Charts

Source: Educator Gold

Study the hoops, but care about the thresholds

When you are on a course you really have - quite rightly - to do things by-the-book. That is the way - they say - you learn which corners of the pages you can turnover. Students learn early on that you have to jump through various hoops in order to complete the course and earn the stripes. The art and science of caring presents its own hoops, but in addition it is thresholds that present a barrier, thresholds that need to be negotiated in order to meet need.

Suddenly this is not about one person (you) it is about a partnership. A partnership of professionals allied and directly collaborating with a 'patient' and their carers.

One of the hoops is the paper or electronic referral form. Are you still sure this referral of yours is necessary? Are those two assessments really necessary?

There are a host of thresholds that may (or may not?) shift like a tide around the local and increasingly extended health and social care community, or 'economy' if you prefer, for example:

The threshold at which a nursing home will contact a GP surgery; or mental health services?
Just exactly what is residential care's capacity to cope internally and manage with a given range of health and social care challenges? What exactly should that capacity be? Should the public have access to referral data from care homes - to accident and emergency, mental health services, primary care? What proportion of 'referral problems' are dealt with at the nursing - social work level? What is the mental health service's threshold in terms of responding to a referral? What is the threshold for relatives believing that sufficient is being done for their loved one?

As lifelong learners of course we are all perennial hoop jumpers, learning the art of scaling and re-framing the thresholds that cross our way.

Image sources:

Seed-and-threshold segmentation

hula hoop

Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge No.11

Pick Your Brains and Expand Your Non-Knowledge here!

Hi, we hope you can make it down to the Bluecoat on Saturday 29 November for this final Liverpool Live 08 event, on the last weekend of the Liverpool Biennial...

Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge No.11 is a lively installation full of hustle, bustle and brains which will have 50 experts sitting at numerous individual tables, sharing their knowledge with members of the audience over thirty minute one-to-one sessions. The Blackmarket event is free, and members of the public can listen in to any of the conversations, or for £1 (or even €1), you can book an expert for your own private half hour dialogue. Get to the check-in early though, or you may find yourself having to do some serious bribing and bartering to get near your expert of choice!

This unique art installation takes traditional methods of knowledge transfer out of the stuffy archives and hushed library reading rooms, and throws them into an arena of discussion and banter, taking on the buzz of market stalls and stock exchanges. Blackmarkets have so far taken place in Berlin, Vienna, Istanbul, Warsaw, Hamburg and Graz.

The topic for the Liverpool edition is: ‘ON WASTE. The Disappearance and Comeback of Things and Values.’ Experts have been invited from the diverse fields of garbology, ecology, philosophy, economy, pathology, entomology and alchemy (those who know how to make gold from dirt).

More information about the event is available on our website and you can also download the full list of experts who will be present on the night:

http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/agid,256/year,2008/month,11/day,29/Itemid,14/

Please feel free to forward this e-flyer to anyone you think might be interested in coming along.

Kind regards,

Phil

Phil Olsen

Marketing Officer

School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BX

Direct line 0151 702 7770

Tickets and Information 0151 702 5324

Fax 0151 707 0048

www.thebluecoat.org.uk

Mobile Academy is a project by Hannah Hurtzig with changing partners, based at HAU, Berlin. Presented in association

with the Live Art Development Agency. Supported by Arts Council England, Liverpool Culture Company and the Goethe

Institute Manchester. www.mobileacademy-berlin.com

=======================================

Wish I could make this, great idea and No. 11 already. ....!

My source: Philosophy In Pubs list

Ye Olde paper: 1996 "Humans, information and science"

I learned this past week that the abstract of an old paper is available online. Being 1996 this was pre-website days and information in a nursing context is a subject I've often thought of returning to. ...

Journal of Advanced Nursing

Volume 24 Issue 3
1996: Pages 591 - 598.

Published Online: 28 Jun 2008
Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Humans, information and science

ABSTRACT

The use of information forms the basis of nursing policies, standards and professional codes of conduct. Although used intuitively, nurses must now also grapple empirically with information needs often defined by others, and with the technology used to capture and process it. Even the briefest contemplation of 'information' reveals a truly pervasive concept. Information is ubiquitous. In order to care effectively in the so-called 'information age' health care professionals need to understand information.

This paper is a small contribution to that effort, attempting to conjoin the disparate fields of health and the information sciences, and the basic sciences upon which they are based. This paper explores how definitions of information formulated in computing and communication theory relate to health and other aspects of human experience. The strategy adopted to achieve this is threefold. First, there is the vexed question of defining data, information and knowledge. Second, I consider how communication — that essential nursing activity — relates to information, meaning and the messages people seek to convey to each other. Thirdly, clinical situations are described in an information-oriented manner, using the concepts of 'redundancy' and 'entropy'. The conclusion provides an historical perspective.

Accepted for publication 5 October 1995.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI) About DIO
10.1111/j.1365-2648.1996.tb00174.x