Dementia research

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 is committed to spending at least £1.6 million a year on dementia research on the themes of cause, cure, care and prevention.

The Society calls for government to triple its annual investment in dementia research to £96 million over the next five years to provide better care to day, better treatment to morrow 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 Quality Research in Dementia (QRD) programme, the Society supports and promotes research in the key areas: cause, cure, care and prevention. The programme is unique because, for the first time, people with dementia and their carers are actively involved in setting the research agenda, awarding grants and assessing outcomes.

Specifically it:

• Builds on the Alzheimer's Society's current total commitment of £5.6 million on research, committing the Society to raising an additional £1.6 million per year for research.
• Matches its research agenda to the real needs 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.

Quality Research in Dementia 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 beginning of 2010, 30 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 genetic mutation for Alzheimer's disease, an innovative randomised controlled trial of training in care homes that clearly demonstrated that delivering targeted training to care staff can halve the prescription rate of anti-psychotic drugs in care homes and a model of the tauopathy in fruit flies that can be used to develop drugs that will target the processes causing tangle formation.  Alzheimer's Society is the only independent funder of dementia research investing in development and assessment of the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions and the effectiveness complementary therapies in dementia care. Alzheimer's Society is investing in drawing to gether 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 psychosocial research, 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 triple its annual funding for dementia research to £96m. 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 January 2010 by Ben Cavanagh