Research Interests:
1) Prevention of cognitive decline and dementia - Maintain Your Brain, a randomised controlled trial aiming for over 4000 persons is underway; (2) Cognitive health and ageing: What predicts cognitive decline in older people? We have been following a population based sample of >1037 people aged 79-90 when recruited in 2006/07 in detail every two years in order to discover risk and protective factors for cognitive decline and dementia. (3) Dementia, particularly Alzheimer's disease: a) how to improve its detection and management by GPs; b) the effects on family carers and on how best to help them; c) ways to improve quality of life in people with dementia and d) reduce behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) 4) Nursing homes: In Australia the 180,000 nursing home beds cost >$4b p.a. Over two thirds of nursing home residents have dementia and they exhibit high rates of BPSD which are distressing to themselves, their families and the staff. We are interested in ways to reduce BPSD and have been trialling different models of care and methods of deprescribing antipsychotics in nursing homes.