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The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts of social isolation and loneliness in relation to people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Through these concepts, biological, psychological and social factors will be examined to consider how we can identify people at risk of social isolation and loneliness who have chronic musculoskeletal pain and then how health professionals may intervene to reduce their effects.

Conceptual paper.

Social isolation and loneliness are often evident in the situation of people with chronic musculoskeletal diseases. This may be bi-directional where pains may lead to social isolation and loneliness, but equally, social isolation and loneliness may exacerbate pain. Interventions to improve the symptoms of chronic musculoskeletal pain, and also approaches around social participation and engagement should be adopted in combination to ameliorate this potentially disabling scenario.

There remains limited evidence around the prevalence and management of social isolation and loneliness for people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. By raising awareness of social isolation and loneliness in this population, people with chronic musculoskeletal pain may be better supported to reduce the negative impact that social isolation and loneliness can have on their health and well-being.

In this chapter, we explore the use of participatory and community-based research (CBR) strategies within institutional ethnography. Reflecting on our current, past, and future projects, we discuss the utility of community-based and participatory methods for grounding one’s research in the actualities of participants’ lives. At the same time, we note ontological and practical differences between most community-based participatory action research (PAR) methodologies and institutional ethnography. While participants’ lives and experiences ground both approaches, people’s perspectives are not considered as research findings for institutional ethnographers. In an institutional ethnography, the objects of analysis are the institutional relations, which background and give shape to people’s actualities. The idea is to discover something through the research process that is useful to participants. As such, the use of community-based and participatory methods during analysis suggests the greatest utility of this sociological approach for people.

The Inclusive Libraries Project began in March 2009 and is due to be completed in March 2010. The practical outcome from the project has been the development of two inclusive public libraries in Birmingham. The libraries have bought new technology, books and other resources, and they have run projects for groups of people with learning disabilities from the local area. At the end of the project, there will also be a training DVD and booklet for other public libraries and learning disability services. The research design has enabled the researchers to survey public libraries in the Midlands and other parts of the country and then conduct action research with the two libraries. Data are being collected mainly through observations and interviews.

Explores ways in which employers can be actively involved as equal partners in the processes of ensuring quality in education. In this case the focus is the Accreditation of Records of Achievement as developed by the Oxford Consortium for Educational Achievement. Using as case studies examples of practice within the consortium, examines the issues and philosophy behind such an approach. Recognizes that employers view education from a different, but no less valid, perspective. While this may be challenging, in the context of the OCEA accreditation process, it is not perceived as threatening by those involved in education. Concludes that the OCEA Accreditation Process for Records of Achievement provides a model for active collaboration between education and employment in such a way that the gap between them is bridged constructively and effectively.

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a sociology that focuses on the everyday world as problematic. As a theory/method of discovery, it focuses on how the work people do is organized and coordinated by text-mediated and text-regulated social organization. Actor-network Theory (ANT) is a theory/method that is concerned with how realities get enacted. ANT focuses on a multiplicity of human and nonhuman actors (e.g., computers, documents, and laboratory equipment) and how the relations between them are constituted and how they are made to hang together to create certain realities. In this chapter, we discuss some of the similarities and differences between IE and ANT. We begin with an overview of IE and ANT and focus on their ontological and epistemological “shifts.” We then discuss some of the similarities and differences between IE and ANT, particularly from an IE stance. In doing so, we put these approaches into dialog and allude to some of the potential benefits and pitfalls of combining these approaches.

As part of a general move to community care and concurrent closure of a 280 bedded hospital, West Dorset Health Authority, as an interim measure two years ago, moved 17 clients with severe learning difficulties and challenging behaviours to three smaller residential units together with two ladies who also showed frequent challenging behaviours. As part of a continuing evaluation of the quality of provision for this group of clients, the authors looked at the present levels of skills of the residents compared with those in evidence three years ago when the 17 were on a secure ward with attendance at a special day care unit. In addition, measures were taken of engagement levels and of the number and type (whether positive or negative) of interactions between staff and residents. For all parameters, significant improvements were evident, supporting the view that small units facilitate the learning of new skills and provide a better quality of life for the residents.

It is widely accepted that rigorous rehabilitation exercises after a stroke can help restore some functionality. However for many patients, this means exercises at home with minimal, if any, clinician support. Technologies that help motivate and promote good exercises offer significant potential but need to be designed to realistically take account of real homes and real lives of the people who have had a stroke. As part of the Motivating Mobility project, we carried out a series of visits to homes of people living with stroke and photographed their homes. In contrast to many utopian smart home scenarios, the elderly of today live in homes that were built as homes fit for heroes' but have been evolved and adapted over time and present significant challenges for the design of in‐home rehabilitation technologies. These challenges include the uses and repurposing of use of rooms, attitudes to and uses of existing technologies, space available in the home, feelings about different spaces within homes and individual preferences and interests. The findings provide a set of sensitivities that will help shape and frame ongoing design work for the successful deployment of rehabilitation technologies in real homes.

The author argues that messages about educational administrators found in contemporary films both shape and limit popular discourse about schools and their mission. Of particular importance is the dissonance between the celluloid images created by Hollywood and the complex and challenging realities found in our own communities. Based on a textual analysis of 28 recent productions, she argues that practitioners would do well to attend popular culture representations and to consider the ways in which mass media shape policy debates about public institutions and appropriate administrative behavior.