Jane is a Registered Nutritionist and Dietitian and co-leads the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre at Bournemouth University. Her research is committed to key nutrition-related problems in older adults, especially the complex problems faced by people living with dementia and translation of nutrition science into practice. She has led key research to understand nutrition and delivering dignity in dementia care funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing. At a national level, her ongoing work with Health Education England has provided evidence informed, high quality education and training to improve practice in dementia care across the health and social care workforce. She is currently Clinical Lead ( Nutrition) for the Healthy Ageing Programme , previously for the Nutrition in Older People Programme - Wessex Academic Health Sciences.
Jane is committed to advancing the professional practice of nutritionists and is an elected Council member and Trustee for the UK Association for Nutrition (AfN) and is a member of the AfN course accreditation committee. She also sits on a number of other national advisory boards including the Malnutrition Task Force with Age UK, Malnutrition Action Group and Leads the Professionals Workstream for the Cancer and Nutrition NIHR collaboration.
Her academic career started at University of Southampton where she completed her PhD as a MRC scholar. This laid the foundation for a new area of study to explore dietary interactions with gastrointestinal function in health and disease for her postdoctoral work. In 1997, her research experience was consolidated with the prestigious award of a Wellcome Trust Training Fellowship in Tropical Medicine working at home and overseas. In December 2008, she took up the role of Senior Lecturer in Nutrition at BU, appointed Framework Lead for Health Sciences in 2010, Associate Professor in 2013 and promoted to Professor 2016.

Research

My current research studies/areas of interest include:

1. Improving the delivery of nutritional care in people with dementia living in the community (care homes and people living at home). We have completed a study, funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing to provide new research informed evidence based toolkit for training and education and currently measuring the impact of their dissemination and spread.
2. Nutritional interventions in ageing and effects on neurogeneration. This area of work specifically targets dietary interventions to improve metabolic function and effect on neurodegenerative processes for the prevention and management of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s Dementia.
3. Nutrition in older people at risk or having undernutrition and ways to improve identification and management of nutritional care in the community. We currently have funding from the Burdett Trust for Nursing to investigate the barriers and facilitators for implementation of a new procedure for nutrition screening in community care for older people.
4. Way to improve the delivery of research informed nutritional advice in training and practice for health care professionals, specifically for people living with and beyond cancer. This areas of work builds on research funded work with Macmillan Cancer Support to develop a new online resource for health care professionals on nutrition for people who have had a cancer diagnosis and completed treatment.

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Media coverage

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