The purpose of this research was to evaluate the Public Health Nurse (PHN) areas to identify the number of clients in County Galway with Dementia/Alzheimers; to identify the stage of the dementia, and to identify the common referral sources to the Public Health Nurse service. The second phase of the study was conducted with informal carers of the clients with Alzheimer’s/Dementia. The purpose of this component of the study  was to examine the characteristics of caring, such as the duration of caring role the services accessed by the care recipient, and to identify any deficits in support services for both the carer and the care recipient.

To achieve this, the authors devised two questionnaires; one for Public Health Nurses in County Galway (93% response rate), and the second questionnaire for carers identified by the Public Health Nurses (69% response rate).