Dementia Researcher Blogs

Dr Chloe Fawns-Ritchie narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.What happens when the health conditions you study for a living arrive in your own family?Chloe, researches why people age differently, and here she tells the story of her mum's dementia, diagnosed at 61. A heart attack followed, and then a late-found, advanced bowel cancer. The diagnosis took 18 months. Along the way came a screening test scored above the cut-off because it was administered wrongly.Later, dementia care and cancer care rarely seemed to speak to each other. The account shows how multimorbidity plays out in real care, and why people with dementia so often have cancer found late. It also covers what it means that drug trials routinely leave out people like her mum. Then it turns to the carer's side and the academic's side. Expertise turned out to offer little protection, and work was no use as a distraction. Productivity slipped, and grief now shows up in the data.It ends with a gentle death and a slow return to a job she once loved.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-when-your-research-becomes-your-reality/AuthorDr Chloe Fawns-Ritchie is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research explores how cognitive function and health influence each other across the lifespan, why people experience different rates of cognitive decline, and what this means for everyday life. She specialises in cognitive assessment, with particular interests in cognitive ageing, chronic pain and the effects of medication on cognition.Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Emily Spencer narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Plenty of PhD students would say writing is the part they dread most, and Emily said exactly that at her PhD interview. With submission now in sight, she describes how the thing she feared became the part of the job she enjoys most. Perfectionism, an inner critic with firm opinions and the pull of everything else competing for headspace all play a part. So does the unexpected help that came from returning after maternity leave with far less time to spare. She wrote it in the final hour of a residential writing retreat in North Yorkshire, and it makes a case for why getting away from the desk can pay for itself.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/learning-to-love-academic-writing/--Emily Spencer is a PhD Student at University College London looking at improving how GPs communicate with people with dementia and their family carers about their future care. Emily previous had a 5 year career break to pursue a career as a musician, and has previously undertaken research on improving the care people with dementia receive from their GP practice, as well as end-of-life and palliative care provision in the community. Emily is also a new mum and will be writing about her experiences navigating motherhood and a research career.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Dr Becky Carlyle narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Every good lab trains people who then leave it, and in this blog Becky writes about what that costs the person left behind.The first half is practical: why no one is truly irreplaceable, how record keeping and an electronic lab notebook keep critical knowledge out of a single person's head, and why an offboarding protocol has to start months before the last afternoon.The second half is about the part of the job nobody puts in the induction pack. By the time you are a PI you are the one who stays while everyone else rotates past, and in a funding climate where good people leave because the money ran out rather than because they wanted to, the loss arrives mixed up with guilt. Becky writes openly about her own recent departure, the meeting where she could not hold it together, and what pulled her out of it: a network of peers who are not going anywhere, treating mobility as something that genuinely serves the researcher, and measuring your own success by what your people go on to do once they are gone.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-when-a-postdoc-leaves-your-lab/--Dr Becky Carlyle is an Alzheimer's Research UK Senior Research Fellow at University of Oxford, and has previously worked in the USA. Becky writes about her experiences of starting up a research lab and progressing into a more senior research role. Becky's research uses mass-spectrometry to quantify thousands of proteins in the brains and biofluids of people with dementia. Her lab is working on various projects, including work to compare brain tissue from people with dementia from Alzheimer’s Disease, to tissue from people who have similar levels of Alzheimer’s Disease pathology but no memory problems. Becky is also a mum, she runs, drinks herbal teas and reads lots of books.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Professor Frank Gunn-Moore narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.Forty years of a research career, told through the three gambles that shaped it. Frank starts with an admission that surprises people: he is known for dementia research and holds no qualification in it. What he does have is a first year at Edinburgh covering biology, chemistry, physics and maths, a Cambridge PhD building roughly 200 plasmids from scratch with no kits, and a willingness to move fields when the opportunity looked better than the plan. Gamble one took him to Bristol to work on a neurotrophic factor receptor he knew nothing about, hired purely for his DNA skills. Gamble two was a move to Edinburgh so his wife could take her dream job, which produced the textbook findings that got him his own group at St Andrews. Gamble three arrived as an email from a physicist asking whether anyone fancied doing weird things with lasers, and turned into a twenty year run through photonics, optical gene delivery and commercial microscopes. The second half is what he would pass on: make room for the left field experiment even when the homogenising pull of AI makes it harder to justify, walk away from collaborators who open with what is in it for them, get involved in pooled national initiatives, and stop treating early career researchers as stepping stones on someone else's route up.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-an-academic-career-then-and-now/Professor Frank Gunn-Moore is an academic and researcher in neurodegeneration and dementia research at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His group has advanced understanding of the early cellular and biochemical mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease, including links between mitochondrial and synaptic dysfunction, and has pioneered new models including the identification of Alzheimer’s-like pathology in cetaceans. His research has also identified potential therapeutic targets, novel signalling pathways such as FRMD6/Willin in the Hippo pathway, and contributed to patented optical technologies developed with industry. He has published over 150 research papers across biology, chemistry and physics, reflecting the interdisciplinary breadth of his work.Find Frank on LinkedInLeave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Emma Williams and Sue Williams discuss their work.Emma and Sue have a job title that stops conversations. Public Advisor Researcher. They did not know what it meant when they applied, and two years on they are still explaining it to other people, including to public advisors who now think they have gone over to the other side. Both came to it through caring, Emma for her Mam who had frontotemporal dementia, Sue for her father and later for a close friend. Now they write topic guides, recruit participants, run interviews and work on the analysis, while still being carers themselves. In this blog they set out what the role actually involves, what it costs them, and what an early career researcher can do to make a Public Advisor Researcher useful rather than decorative.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-what-is-a-public-advisor-researcher/--Emma Williams and Sue Williams are Public Advisor Researchers at the University of Liverpool. Both came to dementia research through their personal experiences of supporting family members living with dementia and related conditions. They now use that lived experience alongside their growing research expertise to help shape dementia research, contributing to study design, recruitment, interviews and data analysis. Their work focuses particularly on ensuring the experiences of people affected by dementia are properly represented in research and in efforts to improve dementia [email protected] us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Adam Smith narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.Publishing the paper is not the finish line, it is where the work of being read actually starts. Adam looks at what happens to research once it lands in a journal, why some of it gets noticed and a lot of it does not, and what researchers can do about that without turning themselves into a personal brand. There are some uncomfortable observations along the way about conference talks, LinkedIn, and the phrase "raising awareness", plus a couple of figures from Dementia Researcher's own channels that even he cannot fully explain. If you have ever wondered whether time spent talking about your work is time stolen from doing it, this one is worth ten minutes.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-good-research-still-needs-an-audience/--Adam Smith was born in the north, a long time ago. He wanted to write books, but ended up working in the NHS, and at the Department of Health. He is now Programme Director for Dementia Researcjer at University College London. He has led a number of initiatives to improve dementia research (including this website, Join Dementia Research & ENRICH), as well as pursuing his own research interests. In his spare time he spends most of his time drinking too much coffee and squeezing technology into his house.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Dr Lindsey Sinclair narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Is time invested in something really time wasted if you don't win? A comment overheard at a rowing regatta set Lindsey thinking about what sport has given her career in science, beyond callouses and a dodgy shoulder. A former school sport hater turned qualified coach, Lindsey maps the anatomy of a 2000m race onto the life of a research project, from crew selection to the final push for the line, and makes the case that some of the most useful research skills are learned nowhere near a lab. There's also a lovely rowing tradition at the finish that every scientist could borrow.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-what-sport-can-teach-science/Dr Lindsey Sinclair is an Associate Professor and Clinical Academic in Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Southampton. Her research explores the relationship between depression and dementia, combining lab work with epidemiology and genetics. Clinically, she works with older adults experiencing a wide range of mental health problems. Outside of work, she’s a keen baker and runner, and has a particular talent for creating ambitious birthday cakes.Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher

Dr Ajantha Abey narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.There are already about a thousand blogs telling you to pace yourself and embrace failure. This is not one of them. Ajantha has written up the unglamorous systems he either set up early in his PhD and still thanks his past self for, or wishes he had. Experiment numbering. File names that actually tell you something. One place for every note. A reference manager with tags that earn their keep. Figures made as you go rather than in a panic at the end. Plus a spreadsheet he cheerfully describes as a colour-coded monument to procrastination. None of it will save you from a failed experiment. All of it will save the version of you who is three years down the line, trying to work out what on earth happened in experiment 17.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-research-habits-i-wish-id-started-earlier-in-my-phd/--Dr Ajantha Abey is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Kavli Institute at University of Oxford. He is interested in the cellular mechanisms of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other diseases of the ageing brain. Previously, having previoulsy explored neuropathology in dogs with dementia and potential stem cell replacement therapies. He now uses induced pluripotent stem cell derived neurons to try and model selective neuronal vulnerability: the phenomenon where some cells die but others remain resilient to neurodegenerative diseases.--Enjoy listening? We're always looking for new bloggers, drop us a line. http://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.ukThis podcast is brought to you by University College London in association with the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society and Race Against Dementia, who we thank for their ongoing support.--Leave us a Tiphttps://dementia-researcher.captivate.fm/supportFollow us on social media:https://www.instagram.com/dementia_researcher/ https://www.facebook.com/Dementia.Researcher/https://www.twitter.com/demrescommunityhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/dementia-researcher https://bsky.app/profile/dementiaresearcher.bsky.socialDownload and Register with our Community App:https://www.onelink.to/dementiaresearcher