Unveiling the Unspeakable: Integrating Video Elicitation Focus Group Interviews and Participatory Video in an Action Research Project on Dementia Care Development

With the intention to comprehensively reflect the reality, foster interactions between researchers and participants, and empower the marginalized groups to be heard, videos are increasingly used in health studies. The findings of an action research project that integrates video-based methods into the development of dementia care in an aged care home in Hong Kong are reported. A working alliance consisted of practitioners, community-dwelling volunteers, service managers, university educators, and researchers was formed to develop a sustainable, need-based play program for the institutionalized elderly with dementia (EWD). Two innovative methods, namely, video elicitation focus group interview (VEFI) and participatory video (PV), were applied. Data analyses were collaboratively conducted by all practitioner-researchers during eight reflexive sessions. Several short films were made through PV for institutional training and community education. VEFI effectively enhanced the practitioners’ understanding of the embodied expressions of the EWD and provided a reflexive, democratic environment to generate knowledge among practitioner-researchers. Counter-narratives of the EWD and educational materials on dementia care were generated through PV. The study demonstrates how innovative video-based methods may enable participatory health research to be more inclusive, engaging, and empowering, and how these methods may provide new perspectives on the ethics of researching vulnerable populations.