Dementia research

Summary

The Society believes that the involvement of people with dementia and their carers will lead to better quality research.

The Society's award-winning research programme currently spends over £2 million a year on research into the cause, cure, care and prevention of dementia, and has committed to increase its investment to £5 million a year by 2014.

The Society calls for government to increase its annual investment in dementia research to £100 million over the next five years to provide better care today, better treatment tomorrow and to avert financial crisis.

Quality research in dementia

Alzheimer's Society is the leading care and research charity for people with dementia in the UK. Through its research programme, the Society supports and promotes research in the key areas of: cause, cure, care and prevention. The programme pioneers the active involvement of people with dementia and their carers in research and continues to lead the field in involving volunteers in setting the research agenda, awarding grants and assessing outcomes.

Specifically it:

• Builds on the Alzheimer's Society's current total commitment of over £6 million on research, committing the Society to raising an additional £2 million per year for research.
• Works alongside leading dementia researchers to ensure Alzheimer's Society research is of the highest quality and scientific rigour.
• Ensures our research addresses the needs and concerns of people with dementia and their carers.
• Actively involves people with dementia and carers in setting priorities for research and measuring the success of outcomes.

Alzheimer's Society research influences the direction of basic scientific research, care practice, health and social policy for the benefit of people with dementia and their families. Research covers the development of new drugs, effectiveness of drugs (licensed and not yet licensed), therapies and care practices, and the health and social impact of dementia on carers or the community at large. The programme also funds and evaluates research on the basic science of dementia and contributes to the long term search for prevention, treatments and cure. At the end of 2010, 45 research projects were ongoing.

Rapid progress is being made in dementia research and the Society is committed to promoting research findings.

Results from projects, funded at least in part by Alzheimer's Society, include the first ever discovery of a gene for Alzheimer's disease, an innovative randomised controlled trial that clearly demonstrated that delivering targeted training for staff in care homes can halve the prescription rate of anti-psychotic drugs and a fruit fly model of Alzheimer's Disease that continues to be invaluable in understanding the formation of tangles in Alzheimer's Disease and the development of new drugs. Alzheimer's Society is the only independent funder of dementia research investing in research into the best care practice for people with dementia, including non-pharmacological approaches to managing challenging behaviour. Alzheimer's Society is also investing in drawing together data from many smaller and larger studies to evaluate the real evidence for how we may best delay onset of dementia or prevent the diseases that cause dementia.

Independent research is of great importance. Despite the international pharmaceutical industry investing billions of pounds annually in the quest for effective drugs treatments for Alzheimer's disease, there is still an acute need for independent research. Research sponsored by pharmaceutical companies tends to be highly specific and focused on the development of drugs. Independent research, including research into care practice and non-pharmacological therapies, is vital if the lives of people with dementia and their carers are to be improved.

The need for increased research funding:

Defeating dementia can only be achieved through research, to achieve this there must be:

• Development of a vision of how dementia research might deliver improved treatment and care for people over the next five years and beyond.
• An increase in research expenditure to ensure dementia research receives the same investment as other major diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Over five years, the government, through the MRC and Department of Health, should increase its annual funding for dementia research to £100 million. Proportionately this would put the UK on a par with other world leaders like the United States, and start to bridge the gap between government funding for dementia research and cancer research.
• Creation of a dementia research environment to attract, develop and retain the very best scientists.

In order to do this we need:

• A comprehensive implementation plan that addresses cause, cure and public health research.
• Joint engagement by government, the research community, charities, people with dementia and those who care for them and pharmaceutical companies to make this happen.
• Action to make NHS patients aware - as a matter of routine - that they may participate in research studies, as well as considering research opportunities as new memory clinics are set up.
• To further support and increase the number of dementia researchers to meet growing research demands over the next five years.

The Society campaigns for:

• More money to be spent on dementia research to step up the search for causes and cures for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
• Research findings to be made widely available and easily accessible to the professions and carers who can make use of it.
• Greater involvement of people with dementia and their carers in the design and implementation of research. Their participation helps to ensure that the best interests of people with dementia remain a priority in all research.

Updated March 2012 by Tess Saunders