Node leader: Bettina Husebø
Bettina Husebø, MD, PhD is a professor and the head of the Centre for Elderly and Nursing Home Medicine (SEFAS), which in 2024 expanded from 12 to 22 staff members, still counting as the centre is expanding its activities. Professor Husebø is a specialist in anaesthesiology, intensive care, palliative care, and nursing home medicine. Her clinical research has been focused on method development and randomised controlled intervention trials, including nursing home patients and home-dwelling people with dementia, highlighting the assessment and treatment of pain, neuropsychiatric and behavioural disturbances, medication reviews, and end-of-life care. Her recent work involves a transdisciplinary approach on technology, smart living, and artificial intelligence in healthy older adults and people with complex conditions, such as dementia and PD. She is also key node partner in the Neuro-SysMed Dementia Node.
Node activities
The Care Node works to discover, validate, and translate novel approaches to improve our understanding of good ageing and to support our society in developing high-quality treatment and care. They strive to facilitate healthy and independent ageing for older adults, and to support informal (relatives) and formal (healthcare professionals) caregivers. Their work investigates innovative methods of symptom assessment, non-pharmacological interventions, service provision and living environments. This includes innovative use of sensing technology that encompasses active and passive sensors integrated in the person’s environment, and digital phenotyping, that is, the determination of a person’s characteristics by its digital data, such as data from smartwatches, smart rings and wall mounted sensors. The 2024 activities of the Node were greatly expanded as the CC.AGE and 5-D projects recruited additional expertise who started their work alongside of already well-established projects, and by being granted the new EI ROBOT project.
Current studies
CC.AGE: The Trond Mohn Research Foundation and the University of Bergen generously provided financial support in 2023 to SEFAS to establish the Centre for Complex Conditions and Ageing (CC.AGE). Here, they investigate the use of novel technology and high-quality care to improve the lives of older persons with complex conditions living at home. CC.AGE began in 2024.
The 5-D project, Decoding Death and Dying in people with Dementia by Digital thanotyping (5-D) is a unique project supported by the European Research Council (ERC), investigating how sensing technology can be used to recognise symptoms among people with dementia at the end of life. By collecting data from nursing home residents, the project will develop methods and tools that can provide a more precise understanding of pain and symptoms at the end of life. 5-D includes the complementary sub-studies DIPH.DEM, mapping the changes in activity of people with dementia at the end of life, and ORAL.DEM, evaluating the oral health status of people with dementia at the end of life and identifying the best measures to enhance oral care.
DARK.DEM is a randomised controlled trial to test whether virtual darkness can alleviate agitation in people with dementia. It is funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the University of Bergen (UiB) and aims to enhance diagnostics and treatment of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia in specialised and municipal dementia care.
EI ROBOT, Emotion-Intelligent Robot System for People with Impaired Cognition, is a new project in collaboration with Vitalthings (NO), Mentech (NL), and SARA B.V. (NL), with funding from the European Union program Eureka Eurostars, the Norwegian Research Council and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. Here, the aim is to develop an emotion-intelligent robot system to enhance the well-being of persons with dementia or other intellectual disabilities residing in long-term care institutions through personalised interactions while supporting care professionals.
The ActiveAgeing study consists of two branches – the DIGI.PARK branch and the Helgetun branch. The Helgetun branch is exploring how living in an innovative, community-based environment can affect the lives of older adults, using a qualitative approach. Helgetun is an innovative ad unique residential project that aims to foster active ageing with facilities to increase physical, mental and social activities. The goal of the project is that the residents manage to live at home longer, with better physical and mental health. DIGI.PARK is an observational study based on quantitative research, exploring the use of wearable sensor devices for symptom tracking in home-dwelling people with PD.
Selected publications from 2024:
- Førsund E, Torrado Vidal JC, Fæø SE, Reithe H, Patrascu M, Husebo BS. Exploring active ageing in a community-based living environment: an ethnographic study in the Western Norway context. Front Public Health. 2024 Apr 30;12:1380922. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1380922. eCollection 2024. PMID: 38745999.
- Vislapuu M, Patrascu M, Allore H, Husebo BS, Kjerstad E, Gedde MH, Berge LI. Feedback System Analysis of a Multicomponent Intervention on Dyads of Home-Dwelling Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers: Results from the LIVE@Home.Path Trial. Innov Aging. 2024 Feb 23;8(3):igae020. doi: 10.1093/geroni/igae020. eCollection 2024. PMID: 38550899.
- Patrascu M., Berge L.I., Vislapuu M., Husebo B.S. Circadian Rhythm Stability Analysis from Actigraphy Data in Persons with Dementia. European Control Conference, ECC 2024, Stockholm, Sweden, IEEE, ISBN 978-3-9071-4410-7, doi 10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10591189.