My friend Janet Simpson, who has died aged 79, was a physiotherapist and academic who emphasised the importance of a psychological understanding of patients, particularly when it came to the care of elderly people.
Born in East Ham, London, the only child of Robert Simpson, who ran a cobbler’s shop, and his wife, Mary, she had a wartime childhood and benefited from the 1944 Education Act when she won a place at East Ham girls’ grammar school. In 1955 she began training as a physiotherapist at the London hospital (now the Royal London) in Whitechapel. There she was noted for the unusual quality of her medical drawing, her sense of style and an adventurous spirit.
After working as a physiotherapist first in London, then in a clinic in Switzerland, she took time out to study at an art school in Berlin before returning to London to hold senior physiotherapy posts at the Royal Free and Mile End hospitals. She studied for a degree in psychology at Bedford College, University of London, and thereafter remained in higher education, first teaching at Coventry Polytechnic (now Coventry University) then working in research at Arthur Exton-Smith’s influential memory clinic at St Pancras hospital in London.
Towards the end of her career she returned to teaching, at the University of East London, and completed a PhD in the early 1990s. Her final academic post was as a research fellow at St George’s hospital, south-west London, investigating falls among elderly people.
Janet’s personal life was centred on long-term friends from work and on the Labour party, of which she was a member throughout her adult life. She loved adventurous holidays, and it was on a trip to Yemen in 1993 that she met David Knight, who became her partner. Over the next 20 years they shared many more adventurous journeys.
After the onset of dementia, which led to Janet’s steep decline, David cared for her at home. He survives her.
