Siôn Williams is a (www.rcbcwales.org) Senior Health Career Research Fellow and is exploring how community and hospital-based services maintain stability and manage the decline of people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and their families. It also examines the role of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) in providing assessment, intervention, rehabilitation and palliative care as people attempt to adapt to their life with COPD. As an Rcbc Wales Research Fellow he has researched the experiences of older people with Parkinson’s disease and developed a grounded theory to understand the transitions experienced by patients and their families as they encountered greater disability (LINK TO REPORT). It highlighted the importance of strategies developed by people themselves in managing their condition and coping with a degenerative disease. The research also mapped how patients and their families living at home could be better supported by community-based health and social care teams and Movement Disorder Clinics. The Rcbc Senior Career Fellowship further develops his interest in researching how people adjust and cope with long term conditions. A particular aspect of his work is the development of qualitative methodologies through a participatory approach, using modified grounded theory, narrative research and testimony. A key strand of this work involves a programme of constructivist grounded theory studies in North Wales in collaboration with Professor John Keady, University of Manchester through a series of empirical studies examining adjustment to life with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke and rheumatoid arthritis.

Parkinson’s disease and developed a grounded theory to understand the transitions experienced by patients and their families as they encountered greater disability.