My research aims to better understand, prevent and manage disease in older people. Funded research interests thus far have focussed on the interfaces and overlaps between delirium, dementia-causing diseases, frailty and perioperative health.

My own PhD project, an observational study of post-operative delirium in an older surgical population, which collected genetic, blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples, showed for the first time that people developing delirium after planned hip and knee replacement are more likely to have a CSF protein pattern in keeping with Alzheimer’s disease.

Long-term follow up of this cohort was funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK and has involved multiple novel analyses of these samples with collaborators. In 2022, we published the first definition of resilience to delirium in the post-operative setting, providing a starting point for much needed research in this field. We led the international Delirium Subphenotyping Initiative.

In 2023, I joined the Northern Ireland Cohort For The Longitudinal Study Of Aging (NICOLA) team as Clinical Lead. Current PhD projects are focussed on frailty and cognitive resilience. We set up the first Northern Ireland Biobank Memory Clinic study within which patients attending geriatrician-led memory clinics are routinely invited to donate blood and CSF to the NI Biobank.