Belgian animated filmmaker Soetkin Verstegen worked from November 2020 to April 2021 for six months with researchers of the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine IBME and the URPP Dynamics of Healthy Ageing (both University of Zurich) to develop an artistic project in the framework of the artists-in-labs Residency The Persistence of Memory – Dementia and Digital Aid Tools for Decision-Making.
A second round of the residency format, including two artists this time and with the same scientific partner institutes and additionally the Memory Clinic, will take place in 2021.
Dementia is one of Switzerland's major social, cultural and health policy challenges. Today, 148,000 people with Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia live in Switzerland. The ageing of the population will lead to a sharp increase in the number of people suffering from dementia in the coming decades. The experiences of other people with the same diagnoses, treatments or decisions have always been a valuable source of information for people facing a new diagnosis or a health-related decision. Digital media as sources of information create new opportunities and approaches to generate and harness knowledge, ideas and resources.
Researchers at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine IBME at the University of Zurich are investigating the possibilities and consequences of digitalization and other issues related to dementia. A current project at IBME is the Swiss database DIPEx for patient narratives, which will serve as a basis for so-called digital decision-making aids in the future. The new database offers a systematic collection of interviews with female patients and to be made available to the public via video and/or audio sequences on the Internet in the near future. The patients' reflections on their everyday lives in connection with health and illness are collected in narrative interviews and made available via established methods of qualitative social research.
Researchers at the University Research Priority Program (URPP) Dynamics of Healthy Aging examine the stabilization of psychological health and quality of life at low, intermediate and high levels of functioning from middle adulthood to advanced old age. Thereby considering lifespan psychological, neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, and medical foundations underlying the maintenance of health and quality of life. The goal of this research network is an application-oriented, participatory and translational research of interindividual differences (i.e., between persons) in the intraindividual dynamic processes (i.e., within persons over time) that contribute to the maintenance and promotion of vital longevity.
In exchange with researchers, doctors and patients, animation filmmaker Soetkin Verstegen dealt with the various aspects of the research and treatment as well as patient narratives. As a team member, she observed, thought along, exchanged, questioned and critically examined the contents of the research from the perspective of her own artistic practice and develops an artistic project from this.
The artists-in-labs Residency The Persistence of Memory – Dementia and Digital Aid Tools for Decision-Making is supported by the Velux Stiftung.