(September 9th 2024) A free Information Day will be held in Tallaght County Library on Tuesday, September 17th marking the 10th Anniversary of the Institute of Memory & Cognition at Tallaght University Hospital (TUH). The Institute includes Ireland’s first ever Brain Health Clinic which diagnoses and treats dementia.
The free information day for the public will feature a variety of talks from leading national experts in the field. There will also be stands from relevant groups like the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland. The event takes place in Tallaght Library from 12pm until 5pm on Tuesday, September 17th 2024.
The following short talks will begin at 3pm, on the day;
- An Introduction to the Service (including its history and future plans) by Prof Séan Kennelly, ( Director of the Institute of Memory & Cognition at TUH)
- The Importance of Brain Health by Graham Knight (Advanced Nurse Practitioner)
- What supports are available after a Dementia Diagnosis? by Cathy McHale (Advanced Nurse Practitioner)
- The Evolution of the Hospital’s Neurocognitive Service? by Emmet Kelly (Advanced Nurse Practitioner)
- How the National Intellectual Disability Memory Service works Evelyn Reilly (Advanced Nurse Practitioner)
- An introduction to the Clinical Trials run at the Institute from Ruth Ennis, Cognitive Clinical Trials Manager
The event will also feature information stands from;
- The Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland
- The HSE’s Memory Technology Resource Room in Ballyfermot
- The Integrated Care for Older Persons Team
- The National Intellectual Disability Memory Service
- Alone
- The Community Guard
- The Social Prescribers, South Dublin County Partnership
- Ex Well Medical
- Citizens Information Tallaght
The Institute of Memory & Cognition at TUH has developed over the last ten years, providing a five-day Interdisciplinary Geriatric-Neurology Memory Service that sees 400 new patients annually. It also includes The Brain Health Clinic which treats 200 patients each year and the National Intellectual Disability Memory Service who care for 150 new patients each year. The Institute also houses the Cognitive Clinical Trials Unit at TUH.
Over the years the Institute has continued to increase its workforce and now has over 20 permanent staff with expertise in neurology and geriatric medicine, as well as nursing, social work, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, neuropsychology, and dietetics. All work together in a truly interdisciplinary fashion.
Professor Seán Kennelly the Director of the Institute of Memory & Cognition at TUH says, “I would like to invite anyone interested in this event to come along to find out more about our Institute. Since we began operating we have grown from a service that diagnosed 70 new cases per year in 2014, to one that is now Ireland’s largest with over 550 new diagnoses per year. The other big change has been the application of biomarkers to support diagnosis. We can now measure the levels of proteins we know are responsible for Alzheimer’s disease by doing a lumbar puncture. In 2014 we were doing these tests around 10 times a year and it could take four months for the results to come back. Last year we did almost 150, and through a new system validated within the laboratory in TUH, the results were back within two weeks.”
CEO of TUH Lucy Nugent said,“I would like to pay tribute to my colleagues Professor Kennelly, Dr Fallon, and Dr O’Dowd and the entire memory service team who have collectively driven the development of our Institute for Memory & Cognition which continues to deliver excellent care for our patients. It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the growth and evolution of this important service at our hospital as it has continued to progress towards better earlier diagnosis, better treatments, and better care for people living with memory problems and dementia.”
Since it began operating the Institute of Memory & Cognition at TUH has had 5,000 outpatient appointments. A quarter of patients attending the specialist memory service are under the age of 65, and this has increased over the last 10 years. Before the establishment of this clinic, younger people with memory symptoms had great difficulty accessing a diagnosis, and it could take years. The average length of time between receiving the referral and seeing someone in the clinic is now around four months, and this can be within the month for urgent referrals.
ENDS
Background information on the important Clinical Trials taking place at the
Institute of Memory & Cognition at TUH
The first Alzheimer’s disease (AD) clinical trial (APECS study) began in TUH in 2016 and continued until 2018. It was the first disease-modifying drug trial to be completed in Ireland – with TUH the main participating site in Ireland. This was a phase III international industry-sponsored study investigating the effect of a novel investigational medicine on brain levels of amyloid protein, in parallel with changes in imaging and cognition, in people with mild cognitive impairment due to AD.
The Sense-Cog Study was a collaboration with St James’s Hospital, which ran from December 2020 to April 2021. This study investigated whether visual and hearing interventions had a positive effect on Cognition in patients with mild to moderate AD.
The EU201 Study ran from March 2021 until March 2023. This was a phase II international industry-sponsored study investigating the effect of a novel investigational medicine on brain levels of tau protein, in parallel with changes in imaging, electroencephalogram and cognition, in people with mild cognitive impairment due to AD.
The EVOKE/EVOKE study is currently ongoing. It began in April 2022 with the recruitment of 10 patients with mild cognitive degeneration and mild Alzheimer’s disease between the two studies. This is a phase III international industry-sponsored study investigating the effect of Semaglutide (which is a medicine already in use for diabetes/obesity) on brain levels of amyloid protein, in parallel with changes in cognition, in people with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease, and people with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
The VOICE (Canary) Study ran from August 2022 to July 2023. This was an industry-funded study which looked to explore the application of artificial intelligence-based analysis of speech in healthy patients, patients with mild cognitive impairment and those with mild AD.
The VINCI-AD study ran from May 2022 until Aug 2023. The Meath Foundation funded this study which looked to investigate the potential role of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation for cognitive enhancement in AD.
The ENBIND study was funded by the Meath Foundation and aimed to explore potential biomarkers (including gait and immune blood tests) of cognitive function in middle-aged individuals with and without type 2 diabetes, aiming to identify those at greater risk of later cognitive decline. 150 participants completed the first wave of the study from 2018-2019, and 102 of these participants completed the follow-up assessments for the study from 2023-2024.
