Mercers Institute for Research on Ageing

What we do

The Mercer’s Institute for Research on Ageing represents the research function of the Medicine for the Elderly Department in St. James’s Hospital.  The Institute has an extensive commitment to research in age related diseases in areas such as memory, genetic, metabolic and endocrine and neuro-imaging and provides clinical services through its memory clinic function.

Ongoing Memory Clinic Research Projects include:-

• The Dublin Healthy Ageing Study
• The impact of social factors on health and quality of life
• Fear of Falling
• Measurement and biophysics of ocular microtremor with application in brain injury, neurological disease and ophthalmic pathology
• Development of a novel measure of autobiographical memory
• Prospective Memory studies.
• Tauopathy study of Front temporal Dementia, Corticobasal Degeneration, and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.
• The Utility of MMSE, Clock Drawing and the Delayed Word Recall (DWR) test in screening for Early Stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
• Concordance between cognitive tests and demographic effects in an Irish population.
• Post–stroke outcomes in the community.
• Awareness in Traumatic Brain Injury and Front temporal dementia.
• The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (TILDA)
• Verbal Fluency, Age of Acquisition (AoA) as a predictor of cognitive decline.
• Efficacy of a Cognitive Stimulation Programme.
• Development of an Electronic Locator device.
• The subjective experiences of new patients and their primary caregivers attending a national memory clinic
• Genetics Resource in Late Onset Alzheimer’s Disease

The Memory Clinic is a specialized service for people with memory loss and dementia. Diagnosis and intervention is provided for people concerned about changes in their memory. The social work service plays an active part in the multi-disciplinary team at the MIRA Memory Clinic. It offers information, advice and practical support about living with dementia for both the patient and caregiver.

Clinic Services: -

• Assessment Clinics – providing an assessment and diagnostic service to clients with cognitive deficit.
• Feedback Clinics – providing clients/families with feedback on diagnosis and assessment findings.
• Social Work support service – designed to advise and support the client diagnoses with cognitive impairment and their family/carer.

Contact details

Phone:  (01) 416 2640 (Reception)
Fax:  (01) 410 3487

Postal address:
Mercer's Institute for Research on Ageing,
Hospital 4 Top Floor,
St. James’s Hospital,
James’s Street,
Dublin 8

Memory Clinic (MIRA)

Appointment Instructions

Patient clinic appointments are scheduled on receipt of referral letter from the General Practitioner, Consultant or Non Consultant Hospital Doctor having been reviewed by MIRA Consultant. Appointments are notified to the client by post and the Memory Clinic Information Booklet is included to advise clients regarding: - what is involved in the process, where to go, how long it may take and that all patients attending their first appointment should, if possible, be accompanied by a relative/friend/carer who knows them well to assist with the assessment process.

Referral Procedure

Appointments are scheduled based on referral letter from GP, Consultant or Non Consultant Hospital doctors which should include the following: -

• Referring Doctors details
• Patient details
• Reason for referral  (including past medical/psychiatric history)
• Tests (to include results where applicable)
  • MMSE
  • MRI/CT (Brain)
  • Recent Blood Tests

Memory Clinic Referral Form (PDF 139Kb)