Jimmy Pollard

In 1986, Jimmy Pollard, a special education teacher by training, found himself managing a specialist unit in a nursing home. Unaware of Huntington’s disease, he rejected for admission a young woman living with it. Her mother gently persuaded him to reconsider and admit her daughter. So began his career working with folks and family touched by HD. Jimmy became interested in how HD’s cognitive changes challenge both people living with it and their carers, and how care settings can accommodate the unique needs of people with HD.

Walking beside Tony, Geri, Carol, Karen, John and Barbara as they travelled their HD roads for 15 years, he began to learn how these changes challenged them every moment and how they went about coping with them. He learned that listening to families and collaborating with professional colleagues is essential to better understanding and, most importantly, to improved care.

In the intervening years, Jimmy has written “A Caregiver’s Handbook for Advanced Stage Huntington’s Disease” and “Hurry Up & Wait! A Cognitive Care Companion for Huntington’s Disease,” which have been translated into eight languages by national HD associations around the world, and has spoken at national HD meetings in Australia, England, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, Scotland, Canada, and the United States.