Palliative care for older people

Lieve Van den Block, MSc, PhD, is Professor of communication and education in family medicine at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She also works as postdoctoral researcher of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders working in the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University in Belgium where she chairs the research on palliative care for older people. She holds a Master in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Medical Social Sciences. She coordinates the EURO SENTI-MELC study, a study occupied with monitoring end-of-life care using sentinel networks of general practitioners in Europe, and is executive coordinator of EU FP7 EURO IMPACT (2010-2014) project, a Marie Curie Initial Training Network on palliative care, and coordinator of EUFP7 PACE on Effectiveness of Palliative Care for Older People (2014-2019). Gwenda Albers MSc, PhD, is postdoctoral research fellow on the EU FP7 EURO-IMPACT project at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. She has a background in Health Sciences and has been involved in palliative care research since 2008. Her research has been focused on quality of life, dignity, dementia and palliative care for older people. She has been working on several projects (a.o. EU FP7 PRISMA), was a visiting researcher at King's College Cicely Saunders Institute in London and obtained her PhD in 2012 from the VU University Amsterdam. Sandra Martins Pereira, MSc, PhD, is postdoctoral research fellow on the EU FP7 EURO-IMPACT project at the VU University medical center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD and MSc in Bioethics, and obtained Post-Graduation in Palliative Care, Graduation in Educational Sciences and in Nursing. She is an integrated member of the Office for Research in Bioethics at the Institute of Bioethics, Catholic University of Portugal. Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen, PhD, is professor of End-of-life Research at the VU university medical center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She leads the research group 'Public Health at the end of life' of the department of public and occupational health, is program director of research program 'Quality of Care' of the EMGO Institute, and the inter-institutional research program 'Quality of life in cancer and immunology', and board member of Expertise Center for Palliative Care. In 2008 she received a career award of the Netherlands organization of scientific research (NWO, VICI scheme) for the research program 'the patient perspective in end-of-life care: personal dignity, preferences and participation'. She has substantial experience at leading and cooperating in national and international multidisciplinary research programs and has over 200 papers in international peer reviewed journals. Roeline Pasman, MA, PhD, is senior researcher End-of-Life Studies at the VU University medical center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is trained as a nurse and has a Master in Sociology. She supervises PhD students in their qualitative and quantitative studies on different end-of-life topics (shared decision making, dignity, advance care planning, hospice care). She also participated in the EU FP7 PRISMA project and participates in the EU FP7 EURO-IMPACT project. She participates in the teaching course Qualitative Research for Health Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Luc Deliens, PhD, Professor of Public Health and Palliative Care. He is qualified in Medical Sociology, and director of the End-of-Life Care Research Group (a multidisciplinary research team of about 40 researchers with clinical (general practitioners, clinical oncologists, geriatricians, nurses), sociological, psychological and ethical backgrounds) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Ghent University, Belgium. He is Co-Chair of the European Association for Palliative Care Research Network, and Scientific Director of EU FP7 EURO-IMPACT project. He has successfully supervised 27 PhD students and is currently supervising around 20 PhD students, and published over 300 journal articles, and over 50 book chapters.

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