MEDICAL

St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton has been awarded a $325,000 grant from the State Department of Mental Health to develop a regional resource center for brain-impaired adults.

The hospital said new services funded by the grant will be available beginning Aug. 1. Janice Huggins, St. Jude’s director of rehabilitation program development, said the hospital at that time will offer a referral system to put callers in touch with specialists in the community who can help them answer financial and legal questions and find family support groups.

The hospital will offer instruction for families in taking care of relatives suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, strokes, tumors or brain injuries.

Some of the grant money, she said, will be used to hire attendants so that relatives of the brain-impaired can take a break from their responsibilities.