Investigator

Dr. Melissa Andrew is Associate Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Dalhousie University. She did a Masters of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and completed her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at Dalhousie University on the subject of frailty and social vulnerability among older adults. She is Principal Investigator of a team studying frailty and multi-morbidity in relation to dementia. She is the chair of the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia’s Research Advisory Committee and was a member of the Nova Scotia Dementia Strategy Advisory Committee.

Collaborator, Cognitive Screening Tool, International Indigenous Dementia Research Network

Dr. Leon Flicker is the inaugural Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Western Australia and has held that position since October 1998, and Executive Director of the Western Australian Centre for Health and Ageing. He graduated in Medicine, trained in internal medicine and geriatric medicine and completed a PhD in Melbourne.  In 2006, in collaboration with Professor Osvaldo Almeida he founded the Western Australian Centre for Health and Ageing. He also led the reorganization of undergraduate and postgraduate education in geriatric medicine in Western Australia. He remains a practicing geriatrician, and is Head of the Inner City Geriatric Services at Royal Perth Hospital. Leon’s research activities have focused on the major health issues of older people including the health needs of older Indigenous Australians, which has included the validation of the Kimberley Indigenous Cognitive Assessment tool, which is currently utilized in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far North Queensland. Using this tool, the research group has demonstrated a five-fold increase in the rate of dementia compared with non-Indigenous Australians. This population has now been followed-up over 5 years. Work in the Kimberley on a pilot model of community services was judged to be one of the ten best NHMRC research projects for 2012. The impact of this research has been rising steadily. To date, Leon has published over 340 peer-reviewed articles (over 160 since 2011), has been cited on over 13,000 occasions, with over 8,000 citations since 2011.  Leon has also served on numerous government committees involved in translation of his research work.

Collaborator, Cognitive Screening Tool, International Indigenous Dementia Research Network

Associate Professor Dina LoGiudice is a Consultant Physician in Aged Care, at Royal Park campus Melbourne Health, and visiting Geriatrician at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service,. Her main clinical and research interests are in cross cultural assessment and management of dementia of older people and their families.  Dina has been awarded NHMRC funding since 2003 in collaboration with the University of Western Australia to address the assessment, prevalence and unmet needs of older Indigenous people with dementia living in remote and rural areas of Australia.  She has also collaborated with the National Ageing Research Institute on a number of projects to address the needs of older Australians with dementia of Culturally and Linguistically diverse needs. Dina has served on a number of government committees including the Safety and Quality Commission for Australia.

Invesitgator

Julie Kosteniuk is a Professional Research Associate at the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan and a member of the Rural Dementia Action (RaDAR) Team led by Dr. Debra Morgan. Her research focuses on rural primary health care, rural services for individuals with dementia, and patterns of dementia in the population. Julie’s recent projects involve model development and evaluation for dementia in rural primary health care, collaborating with the Saskatchewan Health Quality Council on dementia epidemiology and patterns of health service use (RaDAR-HQC), and as a research team member for a national follow-up study on nursing practice in rural and remote Canada (RRN2).

Investigator

Dr. Morgan is a Professor and Chair in Rural Health Delivery at the Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture (CCHSA) and Director of the Rural and Remote Memory Clinic at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research program focuses on improving health service delivery for individuals with dementia and their caregivers in rural and remote settings, including access to specialist services and primary health care models. She has led the interdisciplinary Rural Dementia Action Research (RaDAR) Team since 1999.

Investigator

Megan O’Connell, Ph.D., R.D. Psych. is an associate professor of Psychology, College of Arts and Science, UofS. Dr. O’Connell has specialty training in clinical neuropsychology and psychometric theory. She is the neuropsychologist at the UofS-based Rural and Remote Memory Clinic. Since joining the UofS she has pioneered use of videoconferencing over Telehealth for remote service delivery of services. She is the director of the CFI-funded VideoTherapy Analysis Lab, and leads a project on rural/remote user needs for technology as part of AGE-WELL, a Networks Centers of Excellence. She is an investigator on the Rural Dementia Action Research team, and is also involved in creation of normative data for the neuropsychological battery for the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Investigator

Jacqueline Quail has worked as a researcher at the Health Quality Council since 2008. Jacqueline is developing episode of care methodology that will allow HQC to track pathways of care across the health care continuum (i.e. link together physician visits, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, home care, and prescription drug use). This methodology will be used to identify gaps in health care, predictors of health outcomes, and areas where efforts should be focused to improve the care and health outcomes for patients. She is currently applying this methodology to episodes of exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

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Jacqueline works with many research partners in Saskatchewan and across Canada. She is a member of the Canadian Respiratory Research Network and is the Saskatchewan lead of the multi-provincial research project “Long-term clinical and financial impact of asthma control during pregnancy and preschool years on disease evolution until adulthood.” She is the Saskatchewan lead of the joint Ontario-Saskatchewan CIHR-funded Pan-Canadian Strategy for Patient Oriented Research in Primary & Integrated Health Care Innovations Quick Strike project “HOTSPOTTING: Identifying superusers of health care services with mental health and addiction problems.” Jacqueline also collaborates with University of Saskatchewan research partners including the Rural Dementia Action Research Team and the Quality of Care in Rheumatoid Arthritis team, both of which seek to describe the quality of care and services available for people in Saskatchewan with the respective diseases in hopes of improving both.

Prior to her Master’s degree and PhD studies, Jacqueline’s career as a physical therapist included work in a variety of clinical areas and settings in the U.S. and Canada, including acute care hospitals, nursing homes, community outreach, and public schools. Jacqueline holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Therapy and a Master of Science degree in Community Health and Epidemiology from the University of Saskatchewan, and a doctorate degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University.

Collaborator, Cognitive Screening Tool, International Indigenous Dementia Research Network

Drs Kate Smith is the NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Fellow with Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health at University of Western Australia. Kate is an Occupational Therapist who has coordinated successive Australian Aboriginal Dementia studies since 2003, and previous to this worked as an Aged Care clinician with remote Kimberley Aboriginal communities. Her PhD completed in 2008 was on the ‘Assessment and Prevalence of dementia in Aboriginal Australians’, including the development and validation of the Kimberley Indigenous Cognitive Assessment tool (KICA), in collaboration with the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Service, and Kimberley Aged and Community Services. She has additionally collaborated with Alzheimer’s Northern Territory and Queensland Health to lead the validation of the KICA in other regions of Australia. She completed the project to determine the community care needs of Aboriginal people living with dementia and the pilot of a model of Aboriginal community services in remote communities, which was judged to be one of the ten best Australian NHMRC research projects for 2012.

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Kate is currently managing an NHMRC funded research project to determine methods of empowering Aboriginal Australian caregivers of older people to improve their health and well-being, and also a NHMRC-ARC funded project to develop a quality of life measure for older Aboriginal Australians.

Collaborator & Advisor

Dr. Whitehouse is a Professor of Neurology and former or current professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Bioethics, History, Nursing and Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University, Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and President of Intergenerational Schools International. Peter is a prevention oriented, life course developmental neurologist. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and MD-PhD (Psychology) from The Johns Hopkins University (with field work at Harvard and Boston Universities), followed by a Fellowship in Neuroscience and Psychiatry and a faculty appointment at Hopkins.  In 1999 he founded with his wife, Catherine, The Intergenerational School, a unique public multiage, community school (www.tisonline.org). He is the author of hundreds of academic papers and book chapters ranging from genetics, to clinical to community and public health and ethics. He has worked extensively with family, lay advocacy, and professional groups on brain health including autism.