By Geralyn Magan
The meticulous work of research assistants from Rutgers University was critical to the success of the Parker Nursing Home Project. But the students benefitted too.
Twelve students from Rutgers University have spent the past 2 summers lurking in the hallways and common areas of 3 New Jersey nursing homes managed by the Francis E. Parker Home, a LeadingAge member based in Piscataway.
The students came to the nursing homes only a few days a week, but each one of their visits lasted about 8 hours.
Their job? To act as nonchalantly as possible while observing residents and staff members, and recording those observations on laptop computers at 5-minute intervals.
Eventually, all of the data students recorded will end up on the desk of Dr. Linda Hermer, managing director of research and senior research scientist at the LeadingAge Center for Applied Research (CFAR).
Hermer is the lead researcher on the Parker Nursing Home Project, an 18-month study designed to assess how person-centered care affects nursing home residents experiencing symptoms of depression or dementia. Parker is funding the study.
ACTING AS NONCHALANT AS POSSIBLE
Working in pairs, the Rutgers research assistants (RA) were assigned specific residents or staff persons to observe during each of their 8-hour shifts.
“We write down exactly what they’re doing for each 5-minute observation period,” said Margaret Haskopoulos, a Rutgers junior majoring in public health and journalism. “We record information about their primary activity and a secondary activity, if there is one. We note if they are sad, angry, happy, or neutral. We also code the level of a resident’s engagement in the activity.”
Residents and aides participating in the study agreed in advance to have their activities observed by the RAs, says Hermer. But it was still important to take steps to ensure that study participants wouldn’t feel self-conscious while going about their daily activities.
“We didn’t want to affect their behavior by making them aware that they were being observed,” says Hermer. “The students tried to give the impression that they were observing everyone. But they actually only entered data for the people they had been assigned to observe that day.”
BENEFITS FOR ALL
The research assistants’ meticulous work will be critical to the success of the Parker Nursing Home Project, says Hermer. But CFAR is not the only beneficiary of that work, she says.
First and foremost, Parker residents benefitted from interacting with students who worked in their homes. And the students, most of whom had never stepped foot in a nursing home, learned lessons that they will carry with them for a long time.
“I think what I’ll take from this experience is that most nursing homes are a lot different than the stereotype (suggesting) that all nursing home residents are really, really sick and that all nursing homes are just like hospitals,” says Haskopoulos. “I’m glad I got to see for myself that this is not true.”
INTERACTING WITH OLDER ADULTS
Having an opportunity to interact with older adults was the highlight of the project for Megan Fiasconaro, a Rutgers graduate who is now studying biostatistics at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
“I don’t have that many elderly people in my life,” says Fiasconaro. That may be why one encounter with a 98-year-old Parker resident sticks in her memory.
“She was making jokes, and she was making my partner and me laugh,” says Fiasconaro. “And this thought struck me: ‘This is the oldest person I have ever talked to in my entire life.’ That was a really positive experience.”
Students like Tracy Berry gained important insights about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias while working with individual residents to complete the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), a 30-point questionnaire that measures cognitive impairment.
“You can really see that dementia affects everybody so individually and that everybody loses abilities in different areas,” says Berry, who earned her bachelor’s in public health at Rutgers. “I don’t think there are any 2 people who answer the MMSE questions exactly the same way. So I’ve learned not to prejudge anyone, because you don’t know what is going on inside their head.”
PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE
Maddie Pucciarello, a public health master’s student who supervised the RA team, predicted that her experience on the Parker project would made her a better researcher later in her career. Among other duties, Pucciarello was responsible for preparing the RA’s observational data for CFAR’s analysis.
“Seeing all the steps that you have to go through to get usable data has been really eye-opening,” says Pucciarello, who hopes to begin doctoral studies next fall. “As an undergraduate biology major I got turned off to hard-core research. But now, I am a lot more interested in how research is conducted and how data is managed. I realized (during this project) that I could actually enjoy it.”