Blog: The Brain Dialogues, filtered by tag: Professor Henry Brodaty AO

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au The last three years of a global pandemic have intensified health impacts on the lives of older Australians in many ways, challenging their coping mechanisms and consequently their levels of resilience.  The Eastern Suburbs Older Persons’ Mental Health Service (OPMHS) - in partnership with UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) - is giving attention to the topic of resilience at their free annual forum for seniors, to be held from 10am to 1pm on Wednesday, 26 October 2022 at The Juniors, Kingsford.  The event will be chaired by… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au In-kind partner of The Dementia Momentum since 2015, KPMG Sydney, has committed to continued partnership to support the initiative led by UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA). The Dementia Momentum celebrated its anniversary with KPMG Sydney hosting an exclusive lunch for major donors and corporate partners of the initiative at their Barangaroo offices on Wednesday, 2 June 2021. The event, which was the first to be held for The Dementia Momentum since the global pandemic began and sponsored by private markets finance and investment… Read More

By Scientia Professor Henry Brodaty AO Co-Director Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney and Director, Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration Having been a professor of ageing and mental health for over 30 years, I know intimately how costly it is to find and screen research participants. A lack of participants can result in drug trials being shut down. As a researcher, my passion is to find treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, a type of dementia and better ways to help people with dementia and their families. Without appropriate participants, or a large enough sample of… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au Dr Karolina Krysinska obtained her PhD in Psychology in 2001 and has since had a rich career history in research. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at The University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity at the University of New South Wales. Previously she worked on the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) Registry project at the Monash University. Karolina is also a Gestalt psychotherapist at the ConnectGround Clinic and Lygon… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au Two of UNSW’s School of Psychiatry and Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) academics, Professor Brian Draper and Professor Julian Trollor, were acknowledged for significant contributions to psychiatry at the recent RANZCP Congress held on Monday, 13th May 2019. Professor Brian Draper, a Chief Investigator on CHeBA’s Sydney Memory & Ageing Study, was awarded the RANZCP’s College Medal of Honour for his outstanding contribution to psychiatry as a clinician and researcher, and for his extensive and continuous service to the RANZCP. Established in… Read More

DR ANNE-NICOLE CASEY How people interact with and perceive one another, and each person’s thoughts and feelings about the quality of those interactions and relationships, can affect physical and mental health and well-being. Social cognitive function, which broadly refers to the way our brain processes social information, is recognised as an important marker of how efficiently our brain processes information in general1. Interestingly, the number of individuals with whom a person interacts frequently is associated with their short-term memory capacity2. Some studies report that having larger… Read More

DR VIBEKE CATTS and HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au CHeBA’s Older Australian Twins Study Co-ordinator, Dr Vibeke Catts, has joined over 13,000 Cycling Without Age volunteers world-wide in piloting purpose-built trishaws, which provide seniors the opportunity to get into the outdoors and (again) experience wind in their hair.  A generous private donation to Montefiore Randwick provided the funds to purchase a trishaw. Throughout 2018, Mr Adrian Boss from BIKEast worked alongside Montefiore’s Leisure & Lifestyle and Volunteers departments to train volunteer pilots and get the… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au The Worshipful Master from Lodge Harold Herman Unity, Very Worshipful Brother Mark Arenson, presented a $4,000 cheque to Ms Angie Russell, CHeBA’s Centre Manager, on 26 September 2018 at the Laurelbank Masonic Centre in Willoughby. Very Worshipful Brother Mark Arenson said he was delighted with the funds raised at their inaugural trivia night on Saturday, 11 August and felt it was important for community groups to learn more about dementia and support advances in research.   “This was the first time we had applied for a MasoniCare grant,” Lodge… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au More than 600 guests attended the Inaugural Charity Ball 2018, presented by the Ferrari Club Australia NSW/ACT at The Star on 8th September, which raised funds for research at UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA).  Professor Henry Brodaty, Co-Director of CHeBA, was the guest speaker at the charity ball,which was presented by Ferrari Club Australia NSW/ACT President Frank Cavasinni, with assistance from NSW State Representative Simon Maxwell and H&H Event Manager Kerry Harman. “It was a privilege to be involved in this event,”… Read More

HEIDI DOUGLASS | h.douglass@unsw.edu.au Proceeds from the sale of a rich body of artwork by Sydney-based painter Naomi Lewis, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013 and passed away in 2017, have been donated to research at UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA). “Clearly this cause is an important one for me,” said Michelle McEwing, daughter of Naomi Lewis and coordinator of the art show held at the Ewart Gallery, Workshop Arts Centre in Willoughby. Mum’s great passions were her family, her community and painting. She would have wanted her final show to benefit a… Read More