DCU launches €2.4m Actifcare dementia project

Researchers in DCU’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences have launched a major EU project worth €2.4 million which will analyse inequalities in access to healthcare for people with dementia and neurodegenerative disorders across Europe.

Dementia experts in Maastricht, Germany, Italy, Norway Portugal, Sweden and the UK are collaborating partners in this three-year programme of research known as Actifcare (ACess to Timely Formal Care).  They will analyse the pathways of care and treatment for people with dementia and neurodegenerative disorders and their families across different EU countries.

Lead researcher at DCU, Dr Kate Irving, said,  “In the absence of a cure that can alter the course of dementia and neurodegenerative disorders, a timely diagnosis is important as it opens the way to future care and treatment, and can help people take control of their lives and plan ahead. Many EU countries have now adopted strategies to promote timely recognition of dementia. Timely access to dementia care services is also important for reducing health care costs by postponing nursing home placement. Despite these developments, individuals are often not receiving services of the type, quality and timing that they need.”

The Actifcare project will focus on the middle dementia stages where transition from informal care alone to a combination of informal and formal home care takes place, and it aims to increase our understanding of why people with dementia and their caregivers use, or fail to use, formal care services such as home nursing care, day care services and community or long-term medical, nursing, counselling, and social care structures and processes.

The project will also identify best-practice efficiency and cost-effectiveness strategies that can be integrated in existing European health and social care systems in order to enable national decision makers to make evidence-based decisions when they reform the organisation of dementia care.