Founder of Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI) Jacob Roy Kuriakose, 68, died here in a private hospital on Sunday.
A paediatrician by profession, Dr. Kuriakose turned to take on the lead to set up a facility for caring for the people afflicted by Alzhiemer’s disease way back in 1992, when the disease was hardly known. It was a personal traumatic experience of caring for his father that led him to found a society that would understand and care for the disease.
With head office at Kunnamkulam, he nurtured it into a national-level organisation with 20 registered chapters across the country. The organisation, which started to create awareness on the disease also took up research to study the disease while struggling to get the attention of the powers that be to facilitate their work. The country’s first dementia day care at Kunnamkulam as well as a full-time dementia care home at Ernakulam were the result of years of struggle to make the policy makers aware about the disease and the need for care.
The Tropical Health Foundation of India was another NGO that he founded. He was a senior consultant at Malankara Medical Mission Hospital, Kunnamkulam.
In 2011, he was elected the chairman of Alzhiemer’s Disease International, the first Asian to hold the post.
Dr. Kuriakose was awarded the Vayoshreshtha Samman by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for Institution of knowledge Dissemination category.
ARDSI’s advocacy programmes resulted in the Government recommending dementia to be included in the 12th Five Year Plan of the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Justice.