Shared Opportunities and Challenges – ACHA forges a research collaboration with the LUMC Centre for Medicine for Older People

Ageing is a global opportunity, and a global challenge.  All countries – whether low or high income – are having to grapple with the realities of a rapidly ageing population.  Many of the issues are the same across countries – for example working to ensure that people stay as active as possible for as long as possible as they age.  Different countries, though, have different ways of viewing, researching, and managing these things.  This raises the possibility of learning more through international research.

ACHA aims to bring the best of the world to North East London, and the best of North East London to the world. With this in mind, we hosted a visit from the internationally recognised Dutch academics in older people’s care care based at the LUMC Center for Medicine for Older People, Leiden University Medical Centre at Whipps Cross Hospital on the 2^nd April.

We spent some time touring the Connaught Day Hospital and Older People’s Assessment Unit, where we recognised common challenges in finding the best way to care for older people with complex combinations of multiple physical and mental health diagnoses.  We then went onto discuss future research opportunities including:

• Acute Care for Older People: we discussed how to provide more prompt advice to community based health teams using “Silver Triage Models of Care”
• Pain and dementia: we considered the complexities of identifying when people living with dementia are experiencing pain.  We spoke about new technologies that might make the diagnosis easier and both drug and non-drug based treatments to provide a wider range of treatment options for people living with both pain and cognitive impairment.
• E-health: we spoke about the wide array of healthcare technologies that are becoming available and the challenge of linking these together in the context of frailty, where older people often live with more than one condition and have complex interactions with multiple care providers
• Long-term care: we discussed the differences and similarities between the care home sectors in the UK and Netherlands.
• Kidney disease and ageing: older people living with frailty are increasingly faced with difficult decisions about dialysis therapies due to the way that kidney function deteriorates as people age.  Comprehensive approaches to care may help make sense of this.
• Rehabilitation of older people: in both the Netherlands and the UKwork is needed to ensure that anybody who experiences a deterioration in their health following an acute illness can rehabilitate back to health.  The differences and similarities between countries provide opportunities to learn about ways to do this better.
• Building a workforce fit for purpose: we discussed training for health and care staff around frailty, dementia, and comprehensive models of care.

For each of these areas we identified common research challenges and ways to work together so that the people of Leiden and North East London can benefit from the best research from both centres.  We left the meeting with over 20 action points.  The next meeting of our centres is in the autumn of 2025.  We look forward to building this exciting partnership over the coming months.