Dementia and COVID-19

To support people caring for someone living with dementia during this period and beyond, we have compiled a Dementia Toolkit, available for download. This is a step by step guide that people living with dementia, their families and carers can work through together.

For carers, we understand that dementia can cause challenging behaviours. These are all common symptoms of dementia, and the strategies listed here can help manage these symptoms.

This toolkit can be downloaded by clicking the link on the right hand side of the page.

We recognise that our patients and healthy volunteers are highly motivated in research and clinical trial participation. As motor neuron disease has a serious prognosis, we want to continue to support efforts to slow this illness down. We are therefore continuing to operate face-to-face visits for clinical trials in line with University regulations. 

The Frontier Frontotemporal Dementia Research Group has launched an online survey to understand how COVID-19 is impacting on carers and those living with dementia.

The ForeFront Motor Neuron Disease Clinic are continuing to recruit for RESCUE-ALS and information on this trial can be found here. We also hope to commence recruitment for another phase 3 drug trial which aims to slow progression of MND.

If you think you may be eligible for one of our clinical trials than contact our clinical trials co-ordinator who will advise you. 

At our ForeFront motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia clinics we support over 150 new patients each year with a further 250 follow-up appointments. This includes engagement with our multidisciplinary clinics and research programs. We pride ourselves on offering the highest levels of clinical care, while enabling our patients to be at the forefront of research developments. 

We have adapted to the COVID-19 landscape to ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of our patients and research community. To do this we have rolled out telemedicine to all of our follow-up patients enabling routine clinical review and ongoing management.

The decision to see new referrals is being made on a case-by-case basis to protect patients and staff. Please get in contact with the respective clinic if you have any questions about appointments.