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In this Q&A, Dr. Patricia Morris explains how her research is reshaping ideas of autonomy in dementia care and how collaboration with long-term care (LTC) providers impacts students’ education.

Dr. Patricia Morris (BN’15, MN’21, PhD’24), an assistant professor in UNB’s faculty of nursing and health sciences, brings a deep understanding of dementia care shaped by years of academic and clinical experience.

Her research focuses on how health systems can better support people living with dementia, especially those who are neurodivergent or have experienced trauma. Her work examines how care environments affect stress, comfort and autonomy, and how everyday routines and policies can either support or undermine well-being.

“Dr. Patricia Morris is conducting important and innovative research that challenges how we think about autonomy, dignity and person-centred care for people living with dementia. Her work encourages healthcare providers to reconsider how everyday care practices, routines and environments can unintentionally be distressing, traumatic or overwhelming for people living with dementia, particularly during personal care interactions,” says her colleague, associate professor Dr. Pamela Durepos.

“We currently know very little about the emotional and physical experiences of people with dementia while receiving care. Developing a better understanding of these experiences is an important first step toward informing safer, more effective and truly person-centred approaches to care, including approaches focused on co-regulation, emotional safety and reconsidering aspects of care that may cause harm. At a time when New Brunswick is advancing a provincial dementia strategy, this work is especially important. Dr. Morris’s research helps address an important gap in knowledge and has strong potential to inform future dementia care practices, nursing education and approaches to person-centred care in long-term care settings,” Dr. Durepos says.

In this Q&A, Dr. Morris discusses the meaning of person-centred care, the importance of community voices in shaping care practices and the role of LTC settings in nursing education. She also considers ethical challenges in dementia care and the value of partnerships between universities and care providers in preparing nurses to meet the needs of older adults.

You have emphasized the importance of person-centred care in dementia units. What role do community values and the perspectives of interested parties play in shaping what “person-centred” means in practice?

Person-centred care is a core value in dementia practice, but I think it’s important to recognize that many people living with dementia are regularly denied the opportunity to make their own choices. In many settings, they lose the basic right to make everyday decisions: what to eat, what to wear and when to rest. Their choices are often overridden in the name of doing what is ‘best’ for them, sometimes without even asking their opinion.

When I talk about person-centred care, I am not just talking about individualized care plans or compassionate communication. I am talking about a form of care that fully recognizes people living with dementia as people with the right to say no, even when that decision may be inconvenient or unsettling for others. A truly person-centred approach allows someone to live as safely as possible within the decisions they make for themselves.

There’s a widely held belief that because dementia affects cognition, it automatically affects a person's ability to make decisions. I see bodily autonomy as something that a person never loses, and that should remain a fundamental human right.

This is, in many ways, a radical stance because it challenges how patient safety is discussed. It challenges nursing’s traditional commitments to do no harm and the duty to act in the best interest of others. Treating someone as a person means recognizing their right to decide what happens to their body. It means respecting them when they say no, and supporting them in processing and recovering when that autonomy is violated.

In that sense, the person living with dementia is the most important voice in deciding what “person-centred” means. The role of the community and other interested parties—nurses, families and administrators—is to create an environment where that person’s “no” is heard and respected.

UNB’s initiatives, such as the Long-Term Care Simulation Lab and the Summer Institute, highlight collaboration with care homes and providers like Shannex. How do these partnerships enhance the educational experience for nursing students and improve care outcomes for older adults?

Partnerships with organizations like Shannex and other LTC providers are valuable opportunities for student learning. They also represent a commitment to advancing gerontological nursing research in New Brunswick. These partnerships demonstrate how local organizations and researchers are working together to understand what quality care for older adults looks like in our province.

For students, that means more than brief placements or simulated experiences. Students need to see and practice all parts of the registered nurses’ (RN) role in LTC throughout their program. This exposure helps challenge outdated ideas of LTC and allows students to see it as a site of complex clinical judgment, leadership and relational practice.

The Nursing Education Design Summit brought together nurses and educators to identify gaps in LTC training. From your perspective, what were the most critical gaps identified and how are they being addressed?

One of the most critical gaps identified through the Nursing Education Design Summit was the need for nursing students to engage with LTC settings throughout their program, not just early on. When students encounter LTC only early in their program, they often lack the clinical and theoretical foundation to appreciate the complexity and scope of the RN’s role in these environments. Meaningful learning in LTC requires repeated, progressive exposure across different stages of education, so students can see and experience how nursing judgment, leadership and advocacy evolve in practice.

Another major concern was ensuring nurses are seen as credible sources of insight in LTC settings. This means honouring the unique knowledge and decision-making skills of nurses within interprofessional teams. This has been a continuing focus in our work in the Health Systems Lab at UNB since the Design Summit, particularly through the Summer Institute, where we help students explore the distinctive ways of knowing that make the RN’s role indispensable to quality care in LTC.

We also identified the importance of mentorship, including increasing opportunities for experienced RNs to mentor newer nurses and providing training on effective mentoring. Good mentoring not only retains staff but also shows new nurses the thoughtful and personal side of working in LTC.

The concept of LTC as a “living lab” is gaining traction. What does this mean for nursing research and education, and how can it be expanded to include broader community voices?

I think it’s important to be careful with the language we use when discussing LTC. While the idea of a “living lab” is meant to signal innovation and collaboration, I hesitate to call someone’s home a lab. LTC is, first and foremost, a place where people live.

That said, LTC can certainly be a site for learning, reflection and collaborative knowledge building. The simulation lab at UNB is where experimentation and guided instruction take place; in contrast, LTC settings are spaces of relationship and lived experience. When we enter those spaces as researchers or educators, we have an ethical responsibility to treat residents and staff as partners, not as subjects or participants.

So rather than thinking of LTC as a “living lab,” I see it as an embedded learning community. It is a place where students, staff, families and residents learn together. Expanding this model means deepening relationships with residents, families and community partners, and ensuring their perspectives are central in shaping research questions and educational priorities.

Photo: Dr. Patricia Morris.