Dr Isabelle Tournier
Research Fellow
From October 2020, Isabelle Tournier (Ph.D. and MA in psychology, University of Bordeaux, France) is a Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University. She obtained a two-year Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship funded by the European Horizon 2020 Programme for the IDoService project. The project aims to develop a special service to allow people living with mild dementia to plan, connect with, and participate in tailored opportunities to realise themselves and continue to be fully part of society.
Previously, she has been a postdoctoral researcher at IFSTTAR (Mobility and Behavior Psychology Laboratory; Versailles, France, 2011-2013) in the domain of elderly road users’ safety, and at the University of Luxembourg (Integrative Research Unit on Social and Individual Development, Luxembourg, 2013-2018) for various projects related to aging or dementia, including on the MinD project as the partner lead for the University of Luxembourg. From August 2018 to August 2020, she has been project manager and coordinator at the Info-Zenter Demenz (Luxembourg), an independent service aiming to raise awareness, inform, and orient citizens regarding dementia diagnosis and care in Luxembourg.
Isabelle is interested in various topics related to well-being and adaptation in older adults and people living with dementia, including: design and mindfulness, mobility, social participation, perceived safety, age and dementia-related stigma, social participation, cognition, ecotherapy and animal-assisted therapy. She is particularly interested in applied research, transdisciplinary projects and collaboration between researchers and policy makers.
Projects
1. IDoService
Dr Tournier is currently the main researcher of the IDoService project (2020-2022) that aims to develop a special service to allow people living with mild dementia to plan, connect with and participate in tailored opportunities to realise themselves and continue to be fully part of society. This project is funded by the European funding programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action Individual Fellowships (grant agreement No 895620) and supervised by Prof. Details…
2. KADeLu
The KADeLu (Public knowledge and Attitudes towards Dementia in Luxembourg) study led by Prof Anna Kornadt and Dr Isabelle Tournier aims at having a better comprehension of the knowledge and attitudes about dementia within the general public in Luxembourg. To grasp these dimensions, the researchers developed a questionnaire focusing on people aged 18 years and over living and/or working in Luxembourg. Details…
3. CONNECT
Dr Tournier was part of the CONNECT project that began in 2015 and was lead by the University of Luxembourg. This project aimed to implement a dementia-related forum in Luxembourg. Details…
4. ROSEnet
Funded by the European programme COST Action (CA15122), ROSEnet ‘Reducing Old-Age Social Exclusion: Collaborations in Research and Policy’ (2016-2020) aimed to overcome fragmentation and critical gaps in conceptual innovation on old-age exclusion. It sought to overcome the divide between research and policy to address social exclusion amongst older people in Europe. Details…
5. MinD
Dr Tournier was the lead contact within the University of Luxembourg for the European project 'Designing for people with dementia: designing for mindful self-empowerment and social engagement' (2016-2020) lead by Prof. Kristina Niedderer (MSCA grant agreement No 691001). Details…
6. FeelSafe
Granted by the University of Luxembourg, the FeelSafe project (2016-2018) investigated objective and subjective indicators of safety at home and studied the impact of innovative assistive technologies to ensure the safety of older adults. Dr. Details…
7. Senior Plus
The objective of this project was to better understand the needs of older adults living in the city of Differdange (Luxembourg) in order to create a new social service for them (Senior Plus). More information on this service on the following address: https://differdange. Details…
8. SaMERU
SaMERU (2010-2013) was a research project about road safety funded at 50% by the European Commission DG MOVE. It brought together research organisations (IFSTTAR & TU Dresden) and local highway authorities (Southend, Burgos, Lancashire and Modena) from various countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) to make recommendations that highway authorities may adopt to reduce older road user casualties. Details…
Research
Book Chapters
Tournier, I., Vidovicova, L., 2021. 'Introduction : Framing community and spatial exclusion'. In Walsh, K., Scharf, T., Van Regenmortel, S., Wanka, A. (eds.) Social Exclusion in Later Life: Interdisciplinary and Policy Perspectives, pp. 185-191, Springer Nature.
Tournier, I., Vidovicová, L., 2021. 'Introduction: Framing Community and Spatial Exclusion'. In International Perspectives on Aging, pp. 185-191, Springer International Publishing.
Ferring, D., Tournier, I., 2017. 'Autobiographical memory, self-regulation, and well-being'. In The Happy Mind: Cognitive Contributions to Well-Being, pp. 275-289.
Reports
Vidovicova, L., Tournier, I., 2020. 'Community and spatial aspects of exclusion in later life', National University of Ireland, Galway.
Journal Articles
Tournier, I., Orton, L., Dening, T., Ahmed, A., Holthoff-Detto, V., Niedderer, K., 2023. 'An Investigation of the Wishes, Needs, Opportunities and Challenges of Accessing Meaningful Activities for People Living with Mild to Moderate Dementia', International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20 (7).
Niedderer, K., Holthoff-Detto, V., van Rompay, T.J.L., Karahanoglu, A., Ludden, G.D.S., Almeida, R., Durán, R.L., Aguado, Y.B., Lim, J.N.W., Smith, T., Harrison, D., Craven, M.P., Gosling, J., Orton, L., Tournier, I., 2022. 'This is Me: Evaluation of a boardgame to promote social engagement, wellbeing and agency in people with dementia through mindful life-storytelling', Journal of Aging Studies, 60, pp. 100995-100995.
Lim, J.N.W., Niedderer, K., Tournier, I., Almeida, R., Harrison, D., Holthoff-Detto, V., Ludden, G., van Rompay, T., van der Voort, M., Galansinska, A., Smith, T., Lasada, R.L., Bueno, Y.A., Druschke, D., Ziebuhr, B., Zanasi, M., 2021. 'Applying a multicentre, interdisciplinary approach to strengthen the generalisability of qualitative dementia research: the experience and challenges faced by the MinD project in Europe'.
Tournier, I., David, M., Vives, M.F., 2020. 'Adopting a "collective" animal in a nursing home: The example of Jovi the cat', Gerontologie et Societe, 42 (3), pp. 205-220.
Tournier, I., 2020. 'Learning and adaptation in older adults: an overview of main methods and theories', Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 37, pp. 100466-100466.
Thome, J., Deloyer, J., Coogan, A.N., Bailey-Rodriguez, D., da Cruz e Silva, O.A.B., Faltraco, F., Grima, C., Gudjonsson, S.O., Hanon, C., Hollý, M., Joosten, J., Karlsson, I., Kelemen, G., Korman, M., Krysta, K., Lichterman, B., Loganovsky, K., Marazziti, 2020. 'The impact of the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental-health services in Europe', The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, 22 (7), pp. 516-525.
Ludden, G., van Rompay, T., Niedderer, K., Tournier, I., 2019. 'Environmental Design for Dementia Care Towards more Meaningful Experiences through Design', Maturitas, 128, pp. 10-16.
Tournier, I., Vidovicová, L., 2018. 'Community and space in social exclusion in later life', Socialni Studia/Social Studies, 15 (1), pp. 5-6.
Tournier, I., Marie-Frédérique Vives, , Postal, V., 2017. 'Animal-Assisted intervention in dementia: Effects on neuropsychiatric symptoms and on caregivers' distress perceptions', Swiss Journal of Psychology, 76 (2), pp. 51-58.
Tournier, I., Jordan, O., Ferring, D., 2016. 'Motivation and Memory Impact of Emotional Content and Age Relevance on Recall', GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry, 29 (3), pp. 147-154.
Tournier, I., Dommes, A., Cavallo, V., 2016. 'Review of safety and mobility issues among older pedestrians', Accident Analysis and Prevention, 91, pp. 24-35.
Olivera, J., Tournier, I., 2016. 'Successful ageing and multi-dimensional poverty: The case of Peru', Ageing and Society, 36 (8), pp. 1690-1714.
Ferring, D., Tournier, I., Mancini, D., 2015. '"The closer you get ...": age, attitudes and self-serving evaluations about older drivers', European Journal of Ageing, 12 (3), pp. 229-238.
Tournier, I., Postal, V., 2014. 'An integrative model of the psychological benefits of gardening in older adults', Geriatrie et Psychologie Neuropsychiatrie du Vieillissement, 12 (4), pp. 424-431.
Baurès, R., Oberfeld, D., Tournier, I., Hecht, H., Cavallo, V., 2014. 'Arrival-time judgments on multiple-lane streets: The failure to ignore irrelevant traffic', Accident Analysis and Prevention, 65, pp. 72-84.
Dommes, A., Cavallo, V., Dubuisson, J.B., Tournier, I., Vienne, F., 2014. 'Crossing a two-way street: Comparison of young and old pedestrians', Journal of Safety Research, 50, pp. 27-34.
Tournier, I., Postal, V., Mathey, S., 2014. 'Investigation of age-related differences in an adapted Hayling task', Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 59 (3), pp. 599-606.
Gagnon, C., Desjardins-Crépeau, L., Tournier, I., Desjardins, M., Lesage, F., Greenwood, C.E., Bherer, L., 2012. 'Near-infrared imaging of the effects of glucose ingestion and regulation on prefrontal activation during dual-task execution in healthy fasting older adults', Behavioural Brain Research, 232 (1), pp. 137-147.
Tournier, I., Mathey, S., Postal, V., 2012. 'The association between routinization and cognitive resources in later life', International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 74 (2), pp. 143-161.
Tournier, I., Postal, V., 2011. 'Effects of depressive symptoms and routinization on metamemory during adulthood', Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 52 (1), pp. 46-53.
Tournier, I., Postal, V., 2011. 'Strategy selection and aging: Impact of item concreteness in paired-associate task', Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 18 (2), pp. 195-213.