Abstract
Sirkka-Liisa Ekman, Professor Emeritus of Nursing at Karolinska Institutet, passed away on 3 September 2020 at the age of 77, surrounded by her immediate family. She was a giant in geriatric care and dementia care.
Sirkka-Liisa’s career began as a clinical nurse (1965–1981) in Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden. She worked at Umeå University Hospital (1981–1986) before starting a research career at Umeå University where she defended her dissertation (1993). After working as a senior lecturer for some years, including working at the Swedish Red Cross University College in Stockholm, she was appointed as professor in caring science at Blekinge Institute of Technology (2000) and in nursing at Karolinska Institutet (2005).
In addition to being a respected researcher and research leader, she was also a good leader in both academic and clinical settings. She served as a clinic director in geriatrics at the University Hospital in Umeå, where she worked for a dignified death for people with dementia. Later, she worked as head of the Center for Older People’s Care Research at Blekinge Institute of Technology (1997–2001), and at Karolinska Institutet as head of the Center for Caring Sciences and afterward as head of the Section of Gerontological Caring Sciences.
While the majority of earlier nursing care and research overlooked the ability of people with dementia disease (DD) to narrate their experiences of living with DD, Sirkka-Liisa was convinced that people with DD had more abilities than they could show. Sirkka-Liisa had a tremendous ability to communicate with people with DD as well as with healthy people. In her doctoral project, she video-recorded conversations of people with moderate and severe DD with both bilingual Finnish and Swedish-speaking staff as well as solely Swedish-speaking staff during morning toileting. All people with DD could understand and speak both Finnish and Swedish. The results showed that they communicated better with staff who could speak both Finnish and Swedish. When Sirkka-Liisa finished the data collection, she thanked the participants and said goodbye to them. One person with severe DD said, ‘Thank you for letting me to participate in this important study!’ This is an example of what often happened, that even people with severe DD appeared to understand more than we usually think they do. As a professor, Sirkka-Liisa continued to study people with dementia and other older people. She emphasized in several articles the importance of staff being able to understand and speak the mother tongue of their care recipients and that they should know the people’s culture and provide culturally adequate care.
Sirkka-Liisa also had the ability to communicate with healthy people. Once Astrid, who could neither understand nor speak Finnish visited Sirkka-Liisa’s childhood home in northern Finland. Astrid had very good contact with Sirkka-Liisa’s mother who told about her life with great empathy. However, when Astrid later understood that Sirkka-Liisa’s mother could not speak Swedish, she realized that Sirkka-Liisa had acted like a telephone switchboard between the two.
Today, it is perceived as evident to see the person behind DD. Sirkka-Liisa endeavoured for the implementation of this knowledge in care practice and in nursing education. She participated in the project by the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services and the National Board of Health and Welfare for improving the care of people with DD. She advocated for the right of these people to participate in their own care and in research studies. She was interested in including culturally diverse groups in her research, who did not have Swedish as their mother tongue and their relatives, with a special focus on Finnish-speaking people. She helped to establish special housing for people with mother tongues other than Swedish. She led several international doctoral projects with Iran and South Africa and taught in Lithuania.
Cultural differences and language difficulties were not barriers for Sirkka-Liisa and she read between the lines. Her openness, generosity in time and support were exemplary, which Monir, as one of her several international doctoral students, experienced. She was always available to doctoral students and after the doctoral studies as a friend. Her great commitment and sense of responsibility was with her constantly. Under monitoring machines in a hospital in August 2020, she sent a few words about an ongoing joint project that she initiated together with Astrid and Monir. We share her lifelong passion for making the world a better place for older people.
Sirkka-Liisa spent her last year in a nursing home where some Finnish-speaking nursing staff worked as caregivers. She maintained her interest in improving care until the end. In her doctoral dissertation, she had investigated how people with moderate and severe dementia could be helped to experience trust and independence, given the opportunity to take initiative, experience themselves as competent, as a person with an identity, experience community and to have previously contributed and still contribute valuable inputs and finally experience life as a meaningful whole. When we visited her, she reflected on how she herself experienced what she had studied and how she could contribute to continuing to spread the knowledge that people with dementia have the right to be assisted in exercising their abilities and experience dignity.
So much enlightening was in her mind to spread. She leaves a void in our hearts and a lasting legacy behind. We will always remember her big warm smile, contagious laugher and heart of gold and we will continue the research that we planned with her the days before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.
