NIHR ARC West’s economic evaluation project is led by Dr Hugh McLeod. The ICECAP-O and ICECAP-SCM capability measures offer more holistic assessment of quality-of-life outcomes than the traditional narrower focus on health-related quality-of-life widely used in economic evaluation. These measures ask people to rate aspects of their quality-of-life which are viewed as most important, such as independence.
Professor Richard Cheston will lead the other ARC West project, to develop a family intervention to support people who have received a dementia diagnosis. Comparatively few of the 200,000 people diagnosed each year with dementia are offered support to help them to adjust to the diagnosis. The Living Well with Dementia (or LivDem) course is an eight-week, group-based post-diagnosis intervention. It’s facilitated by non-psychologists and attended by between six and eight participants living with dementia. However, many potential participants would prefer to discuss these issues within their family rather than in a group.