A global dialogue on psychosocial research in dementia is taking place on 26 October 2021 and will gather international leaders to discuss this area of focus as part of the dementia landscape project. This dialogue will be led by Professor Anthea Innes, director of the Salford Institute of Dementia, University of Salford and Professor Huali Wang, director of the Dementia Care and Research Center, Peking University Institute of Mental Health.
Tuesday 26 October 2021
06:00 PDT San Francisco | 08:00 CDT Chicago | 09:00 EDT New York | 14:00 BST London | 15:00 CEST Central Europe | 21:00 CST Beijing
90 minutes
Chairs
Professor Anthea Innes
Anthea Innes is a social scientist who has specialised in dementia for around 25 years. She became the University of Salford’s first Professor of Dementia in June 2016 and also took on the role of the Coles-Medlock Director of the Salford Institute for Dementia. The Institute brings together innovative research across the University to find ways of helping people live well with the condition. She worked at the University of Bradford as a Research Project Officer with the Bradford Dementia Group, where she also completed her PhD. She then worked as a Research Fellow and then a Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling where she introduced the first worldwide postgraduate online programme in Dementia Studies. In 2011, she became a Professor at Bournemouth University where she launched and directed the Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI). Anthea is a renowned leader in rural dementia care research and has led numerous public engagement and dementia awareness projects.
Professor Huali Wang
Dr Huali Wang is Professor and the Chair for Clinical Research, Director of the Dementia Care and Research Center, and Associate Director of Beijing Dementia Key Lab, Peking University Institute of Mental Health. She established the first dementia caregiver support group in China in 2000. Now she directs a training program for community doctors and service providers, and a train-the-trainer program for dementia caregivers support in China. She published five books on dementia care, including Smart Caregivers, China Memory Clinic Guideline and Practice Manual on Psychological Support for Older Adults. The care model has been partly adopted by WHO West Pacific Regional Office to develop the toolkit for community-based dementia care in low- and middle-income countries. Dr Wang is leading the National Platform on Clinical Dataset and Biobank of Major Mental Disorders. In regard to biomarker research of Alzheimer's Disease, she found that ApoE4 allele potentially modulates the hippocampal connectivity and the brain functional connectome.
Speakers
Professor Mary Mittelman
Mary S. Mittelman is research professor of Psychiatry and Rehabilitative Medicine at NYU School of Medicine and the director of the NYU Family Support Program, which was launched in 2016 with funding from New York State to provide comprehensive services to family caregivers of people with dementia. Trained in psychiatric epidemiology, she has been developing and evaluating psychosocial interventions for people with cognitive impairment and their family members for more than three decades. Dr. Mittelman was Principal Investigator of a randomized controlled trial of the NYU Caregiver Intervention (NYUCI), funded for 20 years by the National Institutes of Health. The study demonstrated that the NYUCI, a program that includes individual and family counseling, can improve the well-being of family caregivers and thereby help them to postpone nursing home placement of their relatives with dementia, with a major impact on social and medical care costs. Since then, Dr. Mittelman has participated in numerous replications of the original randomized controlled trial, and in community translations of the NYUCI. Studies of the NYUCI have been conducted in the United States, England, Australia, Canada, France and Israel. A model of the potential cost savings associated with the NYUCI led directly to funding of caregiver support programs throughout New York State, including the one directed by Dr. Mittelman at NYU.
Professor Perla Werner
Professor Perla Werner is a Full Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. She has contributed to the expansion of knowledge in the area of psycho-social aspects of dementia and has pioneered the study of stigma in the area of Alzheimer's disease, its conceptualization, assessment and correlates. Prof. Werner has published over 300 papers and has received numerous grants from prestigious competitive sources such as the National Institute of Aging, the German-Israeli Foundation, the Israeli Science Foundation, and Alzheimer's Association. Prof. Werner is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, serves as an Associate Editor in Stigma and Health and in the board of editors of other leading journals such as the International Journal of Psychiatric Gerontology, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, and Clinical Interventions in Aging. She served as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences and as the Vice Rector of the University of Haifa.
Professor Bob Woods
Bob Woods is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology of Older People, Dementia Services Development Centre Wales, Bangor University, UK. He has been a practitioner and researcher in the dementia care field in the UK for over 40 years. He trained and worked initially as a clinical psychologist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, subsequently combining extensive clinical work with older people with academic appointments at the Institute of Psychiatry, London and University College London. From 1996 to his retirement in 2017, he was Professor of Clinical Psychology of Older People at Bangor University, Wales where he was Director of the Dementia Services Development Centre Wales. His research has involved the systematic development of evidence-based psychosocial interventions for people with dementia and their care-givers, including cognitive stimulation, reminiscence and life review and cognitive rehabilitation. His publications include practical manuals for family carers and care-workers as well as text-books and over 240 peer reviewed journal papers.
Other dialogues in the series
To inform the dementia landscape report, the Council has hosted global dialogues for international dementia leaders focusing on key themes of research, care and prevention that were identified at the London dementia summit in 2013, as well as on additional key themes and new policy priorities that we have agreed to highlight in the report. See below for other upcoming dialogues.