Session III: Pharmacologic management of dementia: What to prescribe and what to avoid prescribing?

Professor Chris Fox is a consultant psychiatrist and provides specialist memory services part-time.  

His main role is as a clinical academic with research areas in dementia:  

(1) Medication and dementia – antimuscarinic and sedative medication using big data to improve current understanding into harms, benefits and causation contribution to dementia. (2) Developing new interventions to prevent deterioration and improve care in people with cognitive impairment. (3) Understanding the role of inflammation in cognitive impairment dementia and delirium with potential for new drug discovery. (4) Digital platforms for carers and people with dementia. (5) Medication usage in people with dementia.

His research in these areas has been funded by the NIHR, MRC, the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.  

Dr Ian Maidment is a reader in clinical pharmacy and joined Aston University in February 2012. Prior to this, he worked in NHS Mental Health services for 18 years, and 8 years at a senior level. He has also worked within community pharmacy, the acute sector and led R&D in an NHS trust.  

His research focus is medication optimisation in the real world, particularly helping vulnerable populations get the best possible outcomes from medication. He was awarded his PhD on Medication-related adverse events in older people with dementia; causes and possible solutions in 2014.  

Dr Maidment has published over 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented at numerous international conferences. He has obtained £618K in grant income (as  chief investigator) and is also a co-investigator on a further £1,092K of grants. 

He has led two NIHR grants focussed on medication optimisation in older people:

MEMORABLE: Medication Management in Older people: Realist Approaches Based on Literature and Evaluation: a realist synthesis. Health Services and Delivery Research 2020.8:26. 

MEDREV: Medication review plus person-centred care: a feasibility study of a pharmacy-health psychology dual intervention to improve care for people living with dementia. BMC Psychiatry 2018.18:340.

He has just finished a UKRI-funded project on the role of community pharmacy in supporting the public response to COVID (click here for pre-print). He also has a H-index of 28 and his work is widely cited (745 citations in 2020). His research has also received coverage in the lay media including the BBC, and internationally, Ian has developed links with the USA, Australia and many European countries.