£7m care boost for dementia patients

A new £7m (€10.4m) centre is being built to dramatically improve care for dementia sufferers in the North.

Causeway Health and Social Services Trust and Coleraine’s Fold Housing Association believe the Brook Centre will be a centre of excellence for the care of people suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia in Coleraine and along the Causeway coast.

Cutting-edge technology will be deployed in the accommodation to enable residents to live independently but also have immediate access to staff when they need them.

Electronic voice communication and special sensors in rooms will be used to alert professional carers to situations which require immediate action such as taps left running, room temperature changes, light failures or a tenant falling.

The majority of people who develop dementia do so after they are 65 years old, although a small group start showing symptoms before then.

In the first phase of the new residential development, 25 apartments will be built and eight flatlets by August of next year.

In the second phase, a further 23 flatlets will be constructed and five two-bedroom bungalows are scheduled for completion in March 2007.

The new care centre, which will replace Brookgreen Home in Brook Street, will create 25 jobs.

With a 2001 Census indicating a population increase of 17.7% among people aged 65 and over in the Causeway area, a planning model developed by Alzheimer’s Scotland has indicated that 1,117 out of Causeway’s 100,000 population will be diagnosed with dementia.