Dr. Laura O'Philbin:

The Deputy mentioned research communication and it is really important to us at the Alzheimer Society of Ireland that research is communicated to the people it impacts. One of the priorities of our research strategy is ensuring we communicate what happens in research to those people. Otherwise, how would they know? I have worked in academic research, where there is a history of doing research, writing and publishing a fancy paper and only other people who have written similar papers can access it. That has completely changed now, particularly in Ireland, where researchers are passionate about ensuring people living with dementia and family carers know what they are doing and about communicating that to them.

In the Alzheimer Society of Ireland we have a person and public involvement initiative called the dementia research advisory team. That is a group of people living with dementia and family carers who are involved as co-researchers. They influence research and help researchers make it better, communication and carry it out better and make sure it is relevant for people. It is nearly a whole-community approach to research, which is brilliant. We also have "TeamUp for Dementia Research", a research-matching service whereby people living with dementia, family carers or former family carers can sign up to find out what research is happening and sign up to take part in the research, and we will get back to them and let them know the outcome of the research. Those are two ways we are trying to ensure those messages reach people.

Innovations in technology were mentioned. We have our dementia hub, which has been valuable. It came about through sponsorship with Fujitsu. It has reminiscence activities on it and ways that people can spend time together. People can go online and download information. Many people use that service