Leadership

 

 

The Dementia Mate Wareware Leadership and Advisory Group has provided advice for commissioners of the Budget 2022 dementia mate wareware projects. You can read the advice here. 

 

Makarena's iwi include Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kahu. Makarena is a Clinical Neuropsychologist.  She is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director Māori for the Centre for Brain Research at the University of Auckland. Her research projects include the development of a Māori theory of mate wareware, a dementia diagnostic tool for Māori, a phone app designed to deliver information about mate wareware to Māori, and a marae-based non-pharmaceutical intervention (Cognitive Simulation Therapy) aimed at slowing down the progress of mate wareware in the early stages of the disease.  Makarena was the 2020 Alzheimers NZ Research Fellow, and was the founding Kaiwhakarite of the Mate Wareware Advisory Rōpū for the Dementia Mate Wareware Action Plan.  

Teresa is of Te Rarawa and Te Aupouri descent. Teresa is a Māori health consultant working with primary healthcare services and facilities in the Māori NGO sector and on equity issues for Māori and is a board member of Alzheimers New Zealand. Teresa began her career as a nurse before joining the Ministry of Health. She has served as Deputy Director-General Māori Health and Deputy Director-General of Policy and Strategy. Teresa has also chaired the Māori Partnership Board of the Capital and Coast District Health Board (now Te Whatu Ora Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley) and Ora Toa Primary Health Organisation. 

Matthew is a senior psychiatrist of old age and academic working for Te Whata Ora in Waitaha Canterbury.  Matthew is the chair of the New Zealand Dementia Foundation and over the last two decades has held leadership roles in relation to dementia mate wareware service development within Canterbury, the South Island, and nationally. He is a medical advisor for Parkinson's New Zealand, Alzheimers New Zealand, and Dementia Canterbury.  Matthew continues to be active in the RANZCP and other training organisations including workforce development in psychiatry, the Walking in Another's Shoes person-centred dementia mate wareware care programme, BPAC, and the University of Otago.

Etu holds dual appointments as a consultant old age psychiatrist with Te Whatu Ora Waikato and as a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. Etu's research interests are in the areas of how to prevent dementia mate wareware, how to help people living with dementia mate wareware, and how to make the allocation of resouces more equitable for Non-European people living with dementiamate wareware  in Aotearoa New Zealand. He was awarded an HRC Pacific Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2019 and the Alzheimers New Zealand Fellowship in 2022. Etu was raised in Tonga where he completed most of his schooling.

  

Anne is Chief Executive of Dementia Wellington, a position she has held since 2016. She is a registered nurse with an MA in Nursing. Anne’s entire nursing and management career has focused extensively on older people. She has worked in senior management roles in both home-based support services and residential aged care settings and lectured in postgraduate and undergraduate nursing programmes. Anne has a long-standing passion and drive to advocate for and achieve excellence in mate wareware/dementia services in Aotearoa. She was a founding steering committee member of the New Zealand Dementia Cooperative (now the New Zealand Dementia Foundation) as well as establishing the local Wellington Dementia Network.

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Kate is a Clinical Advisor, Geriatrician, and Health programmes consultant. Kate is the Clinical Lead for the Oranga Kaumātua/ Health of Older People programme of work for the Central Region and Clinical Chief Advisor for the Office of the Chief Clinical Officers, Manatū Hauora / Ministry of Health. She has been the clinical lead for major initiatives including Community Health of Older People Initiative (CHOPI), a delirium pathway, and responding to COVID. In 2021, Kate was awarded Outstanding Contribution to the Medical Profession award by Capital and Coast District Health Board.