Professor Elizabeth Beattie

Professor Elizabeth Beattie has been appointed as the new Director of Research at the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre (DCRC) - Consumers, Carers and Social Research (based within the School of Nursing at QUT). Professor Beattie has extensive clinical and teaching experience in both geriatric and psychiatric nursing. She holds a BA in Anthropology and Sociology and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. Her doctoral work in nursing science entailed a study of the impact of a tailored nurse-patient communication intervention on the pattern and rhythm of wandering in persons with severe dementia. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Hartford Institute for Gerontological Nursing Research Summer Institute, at NYU, NYC.

For over eight years Professor Beattie held the position of Project Director in a NIH-funded research team at the University of Michigan testing the Need-driven Dementia Compromised Behavior Model. She is a member of the International Wandering Consortium (+VA Patient Safety Centre, Tampa, FL), Adjunct Associate Professor in the Hartford Centre for Gerontological Nursing Excellence in the University of Iowa, USA and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She is currently an investigator on a longitudinal study focused on determining the natural history of the development of risky wandering.

Her work has been critically acclaimed in international research arenas and she has published widely in journals that focus on nursing and the care of older people. Professor Beattie’s primary research interests lie in the area of the prevention of negative functional outcomes of behavioural issues in dementia, specifically elopement, getting lost, fatigue and nutritional issues, and in ethical issues related to decisional incapacity. She is passionate about helping young scholars develop knowledge and skills in dementia research, and connecting research outcomes to practice changes. In her new role at the DCRC Professor Beattie hopes to be able to contribute to the development of robust interventions to improve the quality of life of people with dementia and those who care for them. Professor Beattie is currently working on studies designed to improve nutritional status and mealtime eating problems experienced by people with dementia and their family caregivers living at home.