Claire O'Connor is a research fellow at the Centre for Positive Ageing, HammondCare, a conjoint lecturer in the School of Population Health, UNSW, and is a registered occupational therapist (AHPRA). Her research focuses on people living with dementia, their families and supporters, with particular interests in non-pharmacological intervention to maximise engagement, functioning and independence, and support behaviour management. Combining her clinical training in occupational therapy and research skills, Claire is passionate about contributing to research that is meaningful to people impacted by dementia and is particularly interested in the translation and implementation of research to generate positive change.
Her PhD contributed increased knowledge around behaviour and function in frontotemporal dementia and highlighted the feasibility and acceptability of delivering non-pharmacological interventions in the community for activity engagement and behaviour management in this unique cohort.
More recently, she was the project coordinator for the Reablement in Dementia project that led to development of the freely available Reablement Handbook, technical guide and consumer book, and was awarded Australian Association of Gerontology funding to develop an Assessment Guide for evaluating meaningful reablement outcomes for people living with dementia. All of these resources are freely available: www.hammond.com.au/reablement. She was recently awarded Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration (DCRC) funding to lead a project evaluating the implementation of Arts on Prescription (AoP)@Home for people living with dementia and their supporters.
She has presented her work widely (both nationally and internationally) and in 2017 was invited as a keynote speaker at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. CI O’Connor is regularly consulted as a peer reviewer for highly esteemed international journals (e.g. Ageing & Mental Health, BMC Geriatrics, Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Impairment, Cortex) as well as prestigious international meetings (e.g. World Federation of Occupational Therapy; AAIC) and sits on the editorial board for the Australian Journal of Dementia Care.