The proposed research aims to create empirical evidence regarding the impact of befriending services on health and loneliness, assisting ALONE in developing and refining their mission statement. The research question is: “Do befriending services improve health (measured as health-related quality of life and cognitive function), and do they mitigate the impact of loneliness on health?” A secondary aim is to identify, using exploratory methods, potential mechanisms through which befriending impacts health.

Project Aim(s): To explore the perspectives of multiple stakeholders on respite services for dementia, with a view to informing service development in the Irish context.

To develop a self-report questionnaire that measures the fears and coping strategies that develop in response to memory loss

Project Aim(s): To develop and assess the feasibility of a theoretically-informed, evidence-based and sustainable intervention to rationalise antipsychotic prescribing in nursing home residents with dementia.

The successful treatment of memory impairments and neurodegenerative disorders critically depends on our understanding of the storage and recollection of memory episodes. Specifically, an understanding of the interaction between amnesic and neurodegenerative syndromes would aid the development of effective treatments. One of the key questions in neuroscience is: how do brain networks encode experience-dependent memory? Answering this question will give us a universal tool to treat multiple brain disorders.

1. Overview of Research Plans.

The aim is to evaluate the utility of a Connected Health model in supporting people with dementia and their carergivers in sustaining the patient at home. We propose that the CH model allows enhanced information- sharing between patient, carergiver and healthcare team, enabling streamlined clinical management, empowering the caregiver and enhancing the ability of the caregiver/patient dyad to cope.

Increased knowledge about the pre-clinical and early clinical stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) will be key in developing preventative strategies for the disease as well as development of therapeutic treatment strategies. In addition, this approach will contribute to the development of biomarkers for the early diagnosis of AD.

The overall aim of this research is to examine the effect of regular exercise on:

1) Adult hippocampal neurogenesis

2) Cognitive performance in hippocampus-dependent memory tasks 

3) Microglial activation and neuroinflammatory profile using the transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease [amyloid precursor protein (APP)SWE/presenilin-1 (PS-1)].