SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

Rebekah Perkins is a PhD student at the University of Utah. Rebekah graduated with a BSN in nursing in 2012. Six-months after attaining her BSN, Rebekah entered the Master’s Gerontology Interdisciplinary Program at the University of Utah. This program gave her a foundation for research, health promotion, and education for the older adult population. As a result of Rebekah’s aspirations to become a faculty researcher and educator, she elected to complete a master’s thesis under the guidance of Dr. Linda Edelman. This experience incited a great interest to continue her education with the goal to research nonpharmacological interventions for improving quality of life for older adults. During the first year of Rebekah’s PhD program, she becam passionate about the topics of dementia and methods to improve dementia care as well as alleviate caregiver stress for those caring for family members with dementia. Rebekah is passionate about research in this area as well as committed to focusing her future career on teaching students about the relevance and importance of understanding barriers to improving health and quality of life for older adults with dementia and other diseases. Rebekah is currently looking into nonpharmacological measures for improving quality of life for older adults with dementia and their caregivers, and hopes to make this area of study her dissertation topic. She has recently presented her research at the Western Institute of Nursing 2016 Research Conference, and hopes to continue research that promotes positive lifestyle interventions to improve quality of life for older adults.