Dr Dennis Frost

Organisation/Affiliation:

Southern Dementia Advisory Group, NSW, Australia; Dementia Australia Dementia Advisory Committee.

Twelve years ago, Dennis’ mother was diagnosed with dementia shortly after her 90th birthday and her family were advised that she should go into care. This was arranged and after a few weeks she had a fall and broke her hip. She died a short time later as a result of the complications.
Then, in 2013, a couple of days after his 59th birthday, Dennis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. After a year or so of increasing social isolation he became involved in the

Dementia Friendly Kiama project. Around that time, he also became aware of Dementia Alliance International and has been an active member since then.

In 2016, Dennis was invited to speak at the Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) conference in Budapest about his experiences. In 2017 he was invited to present about the Kiama project at the Dementia Friendly Communities workshop event at the 2017 ADI conference in Kyoto, Japan. He was also invited to Singapore to advise on and discuss Dementia Friendly Communities with Singapore’s Alzheimer’s Association.

Dennis has been a member of Dementia Australia’s Dementia Advisory Committee since late 2017.

Since his initial involvement with the Dementia Friendly Kiama project he has been involved in numerous research projects and has taken on a research advisory role with the University of Wollongong’s Connections for Life with Dementia

projects. More recently, he has also taken on advisory roles with the Sydney Dementia Network and University of Queensland, as well as continuing his role as Chair of the Southern Dementia Advisory Group. He is also a member of the StepUp for Dementia Research public involvement panel.
Dennis has a Bachelor of Science (Hons), Diploma of Education, Associate Diploma of Computer Applications and is a Certified Netware Engineer (CNE).

Aspect of AJDC I would like to see develop:

I am interested in research news, with the experience of the project participant, and promoting the active involvement of people living with dementia in all aspects of research, from concept to implementation, including the co-design and development of assistive technologies.