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June 2006

National dementia research centre for Brisbane

The Queensland University of Technology has won Federal Government funding to establish a $2.2million
Dementia Collaborative Research Centre at Kelvin Grove to help fight the insidious health epidemic which nowaffects more than 200,000 Australians.

About 1000 people are diagnosed with dementia every week in Australia and Alzheimer's Australia predicts that there will be 730,000 Australians with dementia by 2050 unless there is a medical breakthrough.

QUT Professor of Aged Care Nursing Jennifer Abbey will be the principal investigator for the new Dementia Collaborative Research Centre. She said the centre would operate out of QUT's new Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Kelvin Grove in
inner Brisbane and aim to expand social research improving the quality of life of people with dementia and their carers.

The centre will be funded through a $2.2million grant from the Australian Government's Helping Australians with dementia and their carers initiative which made dementia a national health priority.
Collaborators include Griffith, Latrobe and Curtin universities, Alzheimer's Australia and the Hammond Care Group (a not-for-profit organisation specialising in aged care and dementia services).
Professor Abbey said more than one million Australians were in some way affected by dementia.

"There are many people in our communities who help care for relatives and friends with dementia," she said."Researchers want to help these carers and families as well as people with dementia-related illnesses.
"Our ultimate aim is to undertake research that directly relates to realistic and useful improvements in practice, to help both those who have dementia and those who stand by them through a long and difficult journey."

Dementia is a general term used to describe problems with memory and thinking. There are different forms of dementia and each has its own causes, with Alzheimer's disease being the most common.
Dementia affects brain cells and is progressive and irreversible. It can happen to anybody, but is more common over the age of 65.
Federal Minister for Ageing Santo Santoro has also announced that QUT will be one of the universities that will contribute to a new network of Dementia Training Study Centres that will help health professionals access dementia training.