FAQs

VOICE stands for VideOing to Improve Communication Education.

The research aims (etc) are covered on this page. The VOICE body of research predominantly uses conversation analysis to study interactions involving healthcare professionals and people living with dementia. This research has led to the development of our evidence-based training modules

You can also find out more about us and our research on the meet the team/about us page.

Conversation analysis is a way researchers study how people interact in everyday life. Real conversations are recorded—either on video or audio—and then carefully transcribed. These transcripts include not just the words spoken, but also things like pauses, changes in tone or volume, and moments when people talk over each other. By looking closely at individual examples and comparing patterns across multiple conversations, researchers can uncover consistent ways people communicate and organize their talk.

Conversation analysis (CA) uses symbols in the transcript to help readers ‘hear’ important aspects of the talk, like pauses, overlapping talk and changes in pitch and intonation. Below are some of the commonly used symbols from CA transcripts:

. , ? ¿ changes in intonation

↑ ↓ sharp rise or fall in pitch

Word or word emphasis on utterance or sound

°word° talk that is quieter than surrounding talk

WORD talk that is louder than surrounding talk

= latching from one utterance to a another with no gap

wo::rd lengthened syllable

> < or < > increase or decrease in speaking rate

$word$ talk in a smiley voice/ suppressed laughter

#word# creaky voice

~word~ shaky voice

[word]

[word] overlapping talk

( ) utterance could not be deciphered

(0.5)or (.) length of silence or very brief silence

.hhh or hhh inbreath or outbreath

((word)) description of behaviour/analyst comments

By discovering how people talk and interact in healthcare environments, we can identify things that healthcare workers naturally do in their talk that work to aid communication. Often people are unaware of doing these things in conversation, but once identified, we can share these helpful practices with others.

We are grateful to have received funding from a variety of important healthcare research bodies in the UK including: the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) and the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC).

The online training modules are free to access when you register on the website.

Contact us if you wish to discuss face to face training options as this may involve a fee.

The original VOICE and VOICE2 training was developed for face-to-face delivery to hospital staff by specially trained experts in communication and dementia. This training covered some of the challenging aspects of communicating well with inpatients living with dementia for staff, including in cases of: hard to interpret talk, reluctance to engage in important healthcare tasks, ending conversations well, being in different realities and carrying out potentially distressing tasks.

Some of this training has now been adapted into online modules which you can access for free by registering on this website. You can work through the modules in your own time, alone or with others.

We intend to add further modules to the website as we continue to produce new research findings.

You can access the online training for free by registering on our website with an email address.

Please contact us if you are interested in receiving VOICE training in-person from the study team.

Please contact us to discuss if you are interested in delivering the training at your healthcare institution. You will need to be an experienced clinician in dementia care with a role which includes delivering communication skills training for your staff.

Our training has been making a difference on hospital wards since 2017. In addition, our research has led to numerous peer reviewed publications. Check out our blog page to see experiences from people who have been involved.