Orchard Care Homes is proud to announce its participation in an exciting new research project in collaboration with Northumbria University, aimed at improving care for people living with advanced dementia.
The Orchard Care Home’s team pictured with Dr.Kandianos Emmanouil Sakalidis (centre)
Beginning on 22nd September 2025, the project, titled MEAD (Meaningful Engagement in Advanced Dementia), will trial a newly-developed prototype tool at Archers Court Nursing Home in Sunderland. The home is made up entirely of Orchard’s “Reconnect” specialist dementia care communities, providing innovative and person-centred support for residents living with acute dementia
Engagement is a vital part of wellbeing. Being occupied, involved, and connected to others improves day-to-day life for people living with dementia. However, in advanced stages, verbal communication becomes increasingly difficult, and traditional engagement opportunities become limited. Current tools used to assess engagement often fail to capture non-verbal communication, making it harder for carers to identify when and how meaningful interactions occur.
To address this, Northumbria University has developed the MEAD tool, a tablet-based application designed to record and assess short caregiver-resident interactions. The tool uses a tripod-mounted tablet to film approximately five minutes of interaction, which can then be reviewed to evaluate signs of meaningful engagement, including both verbal and non-verbal methods.
“Very few tools exist that properly measure meaningful engagement in people with advanced dementia,” said Dr Kandianos Emmanouil Sakalidis, lead researcher from Northumbria University. “Current methods don’t reflect the full spectrum of communication, especially when it becomes non-verbal. That’s what makes this research so important – and why we chose Archers Court, which has a strong reputation for person-centred dementia care and a team that is genuinely committed to improving residents’ lives.”
The completely voluntary study invited residents and care colleagues to participate at this stage. One family member, whose partner has been living with dementia for over ten years, welcomed the opportunity for their loved one to take part: “My partner also has a hearing impairment, so communication is incredibly limited. Before coming to Archer’s Court, I was always pushing for better, more personalised engagement tailored to her needs. Now, we’re proud to be part of a project that could help set a new standard for how the care sector understands and supports people like her.”
The pilot aims to test the MEAD tool in a real care setting – identifying what works well, what challenges arise, and how the tool can be refined to be simple, reliable and practical for frontline carers.
“It’s all about adaptation,” added Dr Kandianos. “We’re not just building a tool, we’re learning from those who use it, so we can shape something that genuinely improves practice.”
While the tool remains a prototype, the long-term ambition is to create a sector-wide standard for measuring engagement in advanced dementia care, something which is currently missing in most assessment frameworks.
Helen Baxendale, Director of Quality at Orchard Care Homes, said: “We’re thrilled to be part of this important research by Northumbria University. At Orchard, we’re always looking for ways to enhance the quality of life for people living with dementia, particularly in the later stages where communication becomes more complex. This study offers a real opportunity to develop practical tools that can help our teams better understand and support meaningful engagement – something we believe is at the heart of truly person-centred care.”
As the care sector continues to explore new ways to deliver person-centred support, this study represents a vital step toward understanding how meaningful engagement can be measured and improved for people living with dementia. By working closely with families, care colleagues, and researchers, Orchard Care Homes and Northumbria University hope to lay the foundations for a tool that could eventually shape best practice across the sector.
