Project Aim(s): This paper reports findings from a systematic review of the literature on the general public’s knowledge and understanding of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. The key purpose of the review was to evaluate existing literature with specific attention paid to conceptual and methodological issues and to key findings. Over a 20-year period, 40 published articles satisfied the inclusion criteria. Only 4 of these were qualitative and 5 were cross-national.

Project Aim(s):  This national survey investigates the location, resourcing, staff composition, treatments, waiting time, and numbers of patients attending memory clinics (MCs) in the Republic of Ireland. It also explores Directors’ attitudes to future service development including their views about the advantages and disadvantages of quality standards for MCs.

Project Aim(s): To provide new estimates of dementia prevalence at a national and local level in Ireland and new projections of future numbers of people with dementia.

Project Aim(s): This study aims to contribute to improving quality of life for people with end stage dementia living in residential care settings by investigating the experiences of elderly spouses whose relatives died with end-stage dementia in nursing homes in both Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI). A second aim is to develop guidelines for nursing home staff for the delivery of quality care in residents with end stage dementia in residential institutions.

Project Aim(s): To explore the attitudes of Irish and Swedish General Practitioners (GPs) to the diagnosis and disclosure of dementia to patients; to investigate GP under-graduate/post-graduate training in dementia; to examine the post-diagnostic support services available to GPs in both countries and to investigate the extent to which dementia is perceived as stigmatising.

Dementia is a costly condition and one that differs from other conditions in the significant cost burden placed on informal caregivers. The aim of this analysis was to estimate the economic and social costs of dementia in Ireland in 2010. With an estimate of 41,470 people with dementia, the total baseline annual cost was found to be over €1.69 billion, 48% of which was attributable to the opportunity cost of informal care provided by family and friends and 43% to residential care.

We are a PhD training programme, linking together approximately 90 genomics data science group leaders based at five Irish institutions. Expertise within the group spans from statistical modeling and machine learning to the full range of application of genomics. Over the coming four years our research teams will be joined by 100 fully funded PhD students, recruited through this Centre.