Welcome to the Dementia Services Information and Development Centre’s annual national conference. Our conference theme this year is Young Onset Dementia, an illness affecting some 4000 people under the age of 65 years in Ireland. Representing only about one in ten of all people with dementia in Ireland, this small but very significant group of people have distinctive medical, social, emotional, psychological and financial needs that straddle the boundaries of various service sectors including, older peoples health and social care services and mental health and disability services. In Ireland to date, this group of people have been hugely overlooked and their struggles and difficulties have by and large remained hidden except to themselves and their family members directly affected.
Professor John Keady
Younger People with Dementia: Planning, Practice and Development
Professor Brian Lawlor
