Speakers
Presentation title: Mild Behavioural Impairment: assessing neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia-free populations
Bio: Dr. Moyra Mortby is a Senior Research Fellow at UNSW, specialising in dementia epidemiology. Her research on mild cognitive impairment, dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms and Mild Behavioural Impairment drives global advancements in dementia prevention, early detection, and enhanced care strategies.
Presentation title: Modelling neuropsychiatric symptoms (handling skewed data, theory of count models, and ordinal models)
Bio: Associate Professor Ana Capuano is an Associate Professor of Neurological Sciences in Biostatistics. She leads the Data Management and Statistical Core of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and is a faculty biostatistician of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She is a visiting scholar at the genetics statistics program of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has extensive work on statistical methods applied to neuropsychiatric symptoms and neuropsychology of aging.
Presentation title: Meta-Analytic Approaches for neuropsychiatric symptoms topics
Bio: Dr. Mike Malek-Ahmadi has served as a statistician on numerous papers that include translational research, clinical studies, and secondary data analyses in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). He has also authored several meta-analyses in the areas of AD and mild cognitive impairment. Dr. Malek-Ahmadi’s current research focuses on characterizing preclinical AD using blood biomarker, neuroimaging, and neuropathological data.
Presentation title: What can 'omics tell us about disease mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric syndromes in neurocognitive disorders?
Bio: Dr. Byron Creese is a translational and clinical neuroscientist whose research focuses on neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia and late-life onset neuropsychiatric symptoms as markers of neurodegenerative disease. Working with both academic and industry collaborators, his research uses a variety of approaches, including genomics and epidemiology, to investigate the disease mechanisms and clinical consequences of these symptoms.
Presentation title: Pharmacologic treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms: clinical treatment challenges in older adults
Bio: Professor Sarah Hilmer (BScMed(Hons) MBBS(Hons) FRACP PhD FAAHMS) is the head of the department of Clinical Pharmacology and a senior staff specialist in Aged Care at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia. She is a Conjoint Professor of Geriatric Pharmacology at The University of Sydney. She was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to clinical and geriatric pharmacology in 2022. Hilmer’s translational research program in Ageing and Pharmacology at the Kolling Institute includes basic, clinical and population studies to understand the effects of medications and of deprescribing in old age.
Presentation title: Why neuropsychiatric symptoms are important
Bio: Professor Henry Brodaty is a researcher, clinician, policy advisor and strong advocate for people with dementia and their carers. At University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), he is Scientia Professor of Ageing and Mental Health, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA). He has published extensively, is a senior psychogeriatrician at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney and serves on multiple committees for the New South Wales and Australian governments and WHO.
Presentation title: Neuropsychiatric symptoms research in residential aged care facilities – challenge and complexity
Bio: Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Beattie's international career in psychogeriatric nursing, education and research has been focused on people living with dementia, primarily those in residential aged care. She has developed theory and tested identification and measurement strategies to better quantify NPS and improve clinical responses by front line staff and families.
Presentation title: Assessment of neuropsychiatric symptoms in Aboriginal people
Bio: Dr Louise Lavrencic is a non-Indigenous person working as a Research Fellow in the Aboriginal Health & Ageing Program at Neuroscience Research Australia. She undertook a PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, and has subsequently worked for over 7 years in the field of Aboriginal health and ageing. During this time, Louise’s work has spanned research and knowledge translation studies conducted in partnership with Aboriginal communities in New South Wales.