Catherine Bassal

Dr. Catherine Bassal is currently a research associate at the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability (CIGEV, University of Geneva) and a senior researcher of the Swiss PACE team. She has a PhD in psychology, which focused on nonverbal communication of persons with Alzheimer’s disease in nursing homes. She also obtained a postgraduate degree in thanatology at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). In collaboration with the national survey Swiss Nursing Homes Human Resources Project (SHURP), she carried out a study on emotion regulation of professional caregivers of people with dementia. She is also interested in organizational factors and quality management (SAQ diploma) in long-term facilities and has an expertise in team building of care staff members and health care managers. Next to the PACE project, her current research interests are in person-centred technologies for older people with dementia (National project AGE-NT, cluster Dementia) and in the implementation of person-centred approaches in a hospital unit and in nursing homes.