Researchers collaborate with award-winning author to tell the story of chronic loneliness in aged care

Creative writing can deepen insights into how people living in aged care homes experience loneliness, according to a new study. 

Dr Barbara Barbosa Neves, a senior lecturer of sociology at Monash University, spent six months interviewing residents living in residential aged care facilities around Victoria. 

Her research noted a lack of meaningful social interactions and companionship experienced by the elderly was leading to severe illnesses including dementia. 

After reading Josephine Wilson's acclaimed 2017 novel Extinctions, Dr Barbosa Neves enlisted the help of the Perth-based author who wrote a creative nonfiction narrative and a fantasy story based on the lives of two of the study's participants. 

She said the process inspired her in ways that she couldn't have imagined before.

Dr Barbosa Neves spoke to Aged Care Insite about her collaboration with Wilson, ageism in academic research, and the power of storytelling to heal the burden of loneliness in aged care facilities

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