Age care investment in ageing brain research

Generous donations from a prominent aged care provider have helped establish a world class multi-disciplinary, collaborative research centre on dementia and the ageing brain.

Above: Co-directors of CHeBA, Scientia Professor Henry Brodaty, left, and Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev at yesterday’s launch.

By Keryn Curtis

The University of NSW yesterday unveiled a new Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), headed up by two of Australia’s most distinguished researchers in dementia and ageing related fields.  

UNSW’s Scientia Professor Henry Brodaty will take on one of the director roles with the new title of Montefiore Chair of Healthy Brain Ageing, reflecting a substantial grant provided by Sydney based Jewish aged care provider, Montefiore Home.  Prof Brodaty will be joined by Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev as co-director of the new centre.   

Both appointments are well known to the ageing research and policy world. Professor Brodaty is Director of the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre at UNSW and Director of Aged Care Psychiatry and Head of the Memory Disorders Clinic at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital.  

Prof Sachdev, chair of neuropsychiatry at UNSW, is also Director of the Neuropsychiatric Unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital. He was recently appointed to the Federal Government’s Aged Care Reform Implementation Council which will oversee its “Living Longer, Living Better” reform package.

Professor Brodaty said the establishment of the new centre marked the realisation of a longstanding goal to bring together a number of existing research centres under the one collaborative research umbrella.

“The Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing has been a concept for many years but it was finally made possible by a large donation from the Thomas Foundation which was then matched by the Montefiore Foundation,” said Prof Brodaty.

“It brings together research work right across the spectrum from molecules and genomic science right through to enhancing cognition and developing policy.” 

Prof Brodaty said the centre would involve the work of about 60 people over five sites on two different campuses, facilitating cross disciplinary interaction.

“Perminder and I complement each other well.  He is big on the biomedical areas like stem cell research and genetics, epigenetics and neuroimaging; my focus is on diagnosis and management and the policy development area.

“It is important and useful to have researchers working across different disciplines all interacting, and not just the health and medical and nursing fields but the supporting disciplines too.  

“Increasingly we are working with health economists and people in biostatistics for example.  Because when you propose an intervention or policy change you need to be able to demonstrate the costs and savings and impacts on the health budget.”

Prof Brodaty said there was a shortage of health economists and CHeBA was establishing a collaboration with the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to ensure access for CHeBA to these important skills.

CHERE isn’t the only UTS collaborator to be involved in the new Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing.  Professor Lyn Chenoweth will take up a half time appointment with CHeBA too, while retaining her current UTS role half time as Professor of Aged and Extended Care Nursing.

Prof Brodaty said Prof Chenoweth was an eminent academic nursing researcher who would bring complementary knowledge and expertise in aged care nursing, care models and healthy ageing to the new Centre.

With an aim to be one of the leading brain ageing research centres in the world, Professor Brodaty said CHeBA plans to be the hub of many international collaborations, bringing large material and intellectual resources to bear upon the world-wide problems of dementia and memory decline with ageing.

Gratitude for funding 

In addition to the foundation donations from The Thomas Foundation and Montefiore Homes, CHeBA research will be supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council and many other funding bodies including the Viertel Foundation, Alzheimer’s Australia, the Rotary Health Fund and the Rebecca Cooper Foundation.

Dean of UNSW Medicine, Professor Peter Smith, said the funds provided a solid foundation for the Faculty’s critical research into ageing: “These very generous donations from the Thomas Foundation and the Montefiore Home will enable us to research important issues to tackle one of the most critical global public health challenges,” he said. 

Montefiore Home’s CEO, Robert Orie, said the organisation had been working closely with UNSW for the past few years to establish the Chair in order to undertake specific research, identify best practice and to transfer this knowledge into practical application. 

“This will not only benefit the frail aged themselves but also all those who care for them, including staff and families. We are extremely excited that the position has now become a reality”, Mr Orie said.

Tags: centre-for-healthy-brain-ageing, cheba, henry-brodaty, lynn-chenoweth, montefiore, nhmrc, research, robert-orie, unsw,

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