Research videos transcripts

Angela Clayton-Turner: I think the appeal was to be able to do something about the disease instead of just sitting passively and letting it happen.

My name’s Angela and my husband Ted is now in the sixteenth year of his Alzheimer’s disease. Golly…what was he like?… He had a great sense of humour, he was fun to be with, just a very comfortable person that everybody liked.

I think that Ted was worrying about how he was coping for a while before he said anything to me. And then he came home one day and said that his boss had told him, ‘do you realise you’ve asked me the same question three times in the last half hour?’, I’m leaving work and we’re off to the doctors and he was 57 at that point and we’d been married seven years. We then had the diagnosis that he probably had Alzheimer’s disease.

The consultant that Ted had at the time asked us to have a look at the lay summary that one of his researchers had written so we did that and he then suggested that we might like to join the Research Volunteer Network. So that’s what we did. It’s a group of around 200 people who have all either got dementia, or are carers, or are past carers.

Professor Nick Fox: The Research Network is a really interesting part of the Alzheimer’s Society’s approach to research. Volunteers look at applications and give a view. Research is only possible - certainly the sort of research that I do and much of what the Alzheimer’s Society does – is only possible with the generosity of patients and carers.  

PHD Student James Edgar: It puts your work into perspective, I mean, in the lab day-to-day we don’t see patients but when you see people who have been affected by the disease it’s really nice to be able to see that what you’re doing is going to good use.

Angela Clayton-Turner: It’s valuing our experience as carers or as people living with dementia of what we think is going to be helpful for the future. The fact that you can get involved at a stage when you’re still a full-time carer at home, with perhaps limited opportunities for getting out and about, is a plus. You meet new people, you make friends, it’s stimulating, it’s interesting, it’s a learning experience, it’s hopefully keeping my brain working for a bit longer. I’ve actually been able to have a very stimulating life through my involvement.

Ted: Here’s to family and friends, hip-hooray!