2009-10 Summer Students

Posted by on 3 November 2009

Report on the Hope Foundation Sponsored 2009 –10 Summer Research Studentships in the University of Auckland

Shiran Zhang 

Shiran’s research was to “Investigate vision and hearing deficits in the elderly”. Hearing and vision loss are common in the elderly and are problematic for both the individuals themselves and their society. Shiran looked at how much quality of life could potentially be improved by addressing these deficits. He examined the adequacy of the use of hearing and vision aids, as they have proven benefits in reducing the detrimental effects of sensory loss.

He found that a large proportion of those requiring hearing aids are not using them, and despite the majority of elderly people using some form of vision aid, many still have problems with their vision.

Shiran used baseline data from the Brief Risk Identification Geriatric Health Tool (BRIGHT) trial.

Kelly Nunn

The object of Kelly’s study was to identify clusters of clients whose use of home based help services shared certain characteristics.

It was part of a larger study that is attempting to group the users of home care services into definable groups (“clusters”) according to their needs and use of resources

The analysis was done using a recognized assessment tool: the inter RAJ. Information was obtained from four providers of home help services contracted to the DHBs. Data from 81 clients was available for analysis, resulting in the recognition of nine clusters within each of which certain characteristics were shared. These results need to be confirmed by analysis of larger numbers of clients. Hopefully they will lead to the development of a case-mix funding model for use in NZ.