COVID-19 and Older People: Shaping a better world podcast
In this podcast episode, Professor Stuart Elborn, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences, hosts a discussion of the impact on older people, and their families, of the current coronavirus pandemic.
Left - Right: Professor Stuart Elborn, Professor Carmel Hughes, Dr Bernadette McGuinness, Professor Heather Conway
Professor Elborn, himself a leading pulmonologist, with particular expertise in lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis, is joined by Professor Carmel Hughes, Dr Bernadette McGuinness and Professor Heather Conway for a wide-ranging look at the key issues.
Professor Carmel Hughes, a pharmacist and Head of School at the School of Pharmacy in Queen’s, has focused her research on the use of medicines in older people, particularly those living in care homes.
She was formerly Joint Clinical Lead for the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network, and was awarded a National Primary Care Career Scientist Award from the Research and Development Division of the UK’s Department of Health – the only pharmacist to have been so recognised.
Dr Bernadette McGuinness, a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Geriatrician in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, is a leading researcher in cognitive impairment and dementia, and she recently took a leading role in a ground-breaking Alzheimer’s trial in patients in Northern Ireland.
She is Clinical Lead in the Healthy Cognitive Aging Project in the NICOLA study, a longitudinal study of aging in Northern Ireland.
She has co-authored scientific papers across a broad range of topics, including a paper published in February this year in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Professor Heather Conway is Professor of Property Law and Death Studies in the School of Law. Her book The Law and the Dead was published in 2016, and as the memorable title suggests, Professor Conway’s research focuses on the legal frameworks around death, burial, cremation, and memorialisation. She also writes and researches on property and succession law, and most recently has contributed an article on how Coronavirus is changing funerals to the Queen’s COVID-19 website.