Dementia and mild cognitive impairment: practical strategies for general practice

Dr Stephanie Daly – Moderator

Dr Daly is a GP based in Adelaide and the founder of Sensus Cognition, a primary care cognition clinic. She is the Lead GP Educator at Dementia Training Australia and also works as a GP contractor at Golden Grove Family Health. Dr Daly serves as a medical educator with the Royal Australian College of General Practice (RACGP), and sits on both the RACGP Training and Education Committee and the Women in General Practice Committee. She is an advisory board member for the Roche Educational Development Team for Alzheimer’s Disease and is an associate investigator on two National Health and Medical Research Council funded research grants. Her work is grounded in a commitment to improve dementia care within general practice, through both education and research.

Professor Lee-Fay Low

Professor Low is Professor in Ageing and Health, at The University of Sydney. She is a Registered Psychologist with a PhD in psychiatric epidemiology..

Professor Low conducts research that she hopes will make a difference in the world. Her knowledge expertise is in rehabilitation and postdiagnostic support for people with dementia, timely diagnosis of dementia, stigma and dementia literacy, community and aged care and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. She has methodological skills in the design of complex interventions, implementation methods, population studies, systematic reviews and clustered randomised trials.

She has authored over 180 peer-reviewed articles, and three books on dementia. She is an active advocate for improving how older people are included and treated. Professor Low is enthusiastic about research, and even admits to liking statistics.

Associate Professor Mark Yates

Associate Professor Yates is a Consultant Geriatrician with the Grampians Region Cognitive, Dementia and Memory Service, and serves as a Clinical Associate Professor at Deakin University.

Alongside a team at Grampians Health Services, he developed the Dementia Care in Hospitals Program (DCHP), a comprehensive hospital-wide education initiative linked to the bedside Cognitive Impairment Identifier alert. From 2015 to 2017, with funding from an Australian Government grant, the DCHP was implemented and evaluated across four hospitals in four states and territories. It expanded to the Northern Territory in 2019, and was adopted by Redcliffe Hospital in 2020 for its Cognitive Impairment Support Program.

Associate Professor Yates is a member of the Australian Government Department of Health Dementia Expert Reference Group, the National Aged Care Advisory Council and Safer Care Victoria’s Delirium Expert Working Group. He is a former member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and a past President of the Australian Medical Association Victoria.

Professor Dimity Pond

Professor Pond served for more than 20 years as Head of the Discipline of General Practice at the University of Newcastle. Currently, she has a Clinical Professor appointment with the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania. She also teaches for Dementia Training Australia. She has over 200 publications.

Throughout this time, Professor Pond has maintained active clinical practice. Her research on dementia has focused on diagnosis and management within GP settings. She has been instrumental in developing and trialling the General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition (GPCOG) screening tool, has served on the committee developing (and currently revising) Dementia guidelines for Australian doctors, and has served on numerous government committees. She also chairs the RACGP Expert Research Committee-Research.

Her work extends to system changes in general practice to foster best use of primary care for individuals with dementia, including collaborations with nursing and allied health professionals.

Caroline Gibson

Caroline Gibson is an early-Career Clinician Researcher and an expert on the role of the general practice nurse in dementia care. She is completing her PhD at the University of Newcastle on this topic. Her research has informed the development of national dementia training for general practice nurses. Caroline is an invited member of the Australian Government Department of Health Dementia Expert Reference Group (2021-current). She has experience as a general practice nurse, district nurse, complex care coordinator and aged care assessor in the community.