From an IT background, innovating digital opportunities to improve mental health and wellbeing was a natural progression for community-minded Dr Lua Perimal-Lewis.
What do you do at Flinders University?
I’m a Senior Research Fellow at Flinders Digital Health Research Centre, with a key interest in how digital health can support our society.
What are you researching at the moment?
Currently, I am researching how data collected from day-to-day user applications (for example smart devices, wearables, sensors) that interact with a formal IT environment can be leveraged to re-conceptualise the delivery of mental well-being initiatives.
The aim of this research is to help us understand behaviours at the wider population level to enable the development of systems level interventions to reduce the strain on stressed mental health services and create wellness-based environments, centred on the ‘salutogenic model’. This research is funded by Cisco and is conducted through the newly established Digital Health Design Lab.
I am the principal investigator on the Flinders Assistant for Memory Enhancement (FAME) study. FAME is a tablet-based platform used to provide assistive mobile tools to aid with daily living and deliver brain training and physical activity interventions to community-dwelling older adults wishing to counteract mild memory loss. FAME has completed two pilot studies. There are now two active studies using the platform; a randomised controlled trial at Flinders Medical Centre and another trial in partnership with the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and ECH (provider of aged care services) investigating on how technology can reduce social isolation in older adults living alone during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recently, I received a grant from Parkinson’s SA to undertake evaluation studies of the Young Onset Parkinson’s Exchange (YOP-X) app. This is a unique collaboration with multiple stakeholders with iterative deliverables and enhancements creating a comprehensive delivery framework throughout the development life cycle. The app is being evaluated applying the living laboratory principles with User Experience (UX) at the centre of the initiative.
Internationally, I have strong collaboration with the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus and Technology University of Dresden, Germany in app design and trial research.
How did you become interested in this area?
I started my career in IT with a strong alignment in public health and medical research. Before moving to academia, I worked at several organisations including Hewlett Packard. The fast-paced IT industry suited me well prior to starting a family but later, the nature of my role did not suit our young children and family life.
When an opportunity came, I applied for a PhD scholarship and was fortunate to have the perfect clinical supervisor, which meant speedy completion of PhD with an excellent outcome in the optimisation of hospital patient journeys.
Post PhD, whilst continuing my teaching role at the College of Science and Engineering, I secured a Research Assistant role at the College of Medicine and Public Health. It was this role that got me interested in the ageing research agenda. I was part of a team investigating services provided for people living with dementia in residential aged care facilities. In addition, I was given the opportunity to translate my PhD findings to investigate patient journeys of people with dementia presenting at hospitals. Towards the end of this contract, I applied for a Research Fellow position at the newly established Flinders Digital Health Research Centre with the opportunity to lead the ‘Digital health supporting our ageing society’ flagship area and have not looked back!
What are you most proud of?
My children, they are the centre of our universe! I am blessed to have two beautiful girls with qualities I truly admire; one with a very strong sense of justice and the other with a strong sense of peacefulness. Our eldest daughter surprised us when she received the academic student award at her primary school graduation ceremony, and our younger daughter, at the age of nine, sang a solo of ‘Alessia Cara’s – Scars to Your Beautiful’ in front of an audience of more the 100 people ending with the kind of applause every parent would want to experience. It was very emotional; she sang it for my mum.
From a career perspective, I was pleasantly delighted when Channel 7 approached me to do an interview on FAME. The interview was aired during prime TV viewing and happened just before we started recruitment for the FAME trial, which was extremely helpful.
Can you share any challenges in your life?
I do not enjoy public speaking and do not cope well with any type of conflict, so these are the two things I need to constantly work on. Moving to Australia about 20 years ago with my husband without the rest of my family was a major upheaval. However, some wonderful people in my local Bahá’í community became my family. I got quite involved in supporting any initiatives that needed help, which extended to the broader neighbourhood and this helped me integrate well in the community.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
In Malaysia where I was born, community service within our local neighbourhood was a big part of my family. We wanted our children to have the same neighbourly values. We started neighbourhood Bahá’í children’s classes, so I spend my spare time preparing for these classes which use a curriculum inspired by the concept of unity and oneness of humanity to cultivate patterns of behaviour for a productive life.
My husband and our two girls are also involved in the children’s classes and other neighbourhood activities we do as a family. Every weekend we get together with other families, usually for breakfast cook-ups which rotates in different households followed by meaningful conversations based on multi-faith prayers and quotes that people bring. When COVID-19 restrictions started, my daughter got one of our neighbours to run a weekly mindfulness session for the neighbourhood on Zoom. Despite the lockdown, we were very busy and connected rather than isolated. The community is our extended family.
Otherwise, I love reading – generally I have two books of different genres on the go at the same time.