Dementia Researcher Blogs

Fiona Hartley narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Fiona Hartley cared for her mum, who had Alzheimer’s disease, and is now a member of Partners in Research, the patient and public involvement group of the NHS Research Scotland Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network.In this narrated guest blog she reflects on the Celebrating Scottish Research conference in Stirling. Researchers, clinicians and people with lived experience met there on an equal footing. She explains what co-production means in practice, and how her group reviews studies and now runs its own co-research. She also covers the talks that stayed with her, on women and dementia and on why other long-term conditions matter. As a retired physiotherapist and former carer, she brings a practical question to the multimorbidity talk: how do you balance treating one condition against the distress it causes someone living with dementia?https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-celebrating-scottish-research-patient-public-involvement/Fiona Hartley is a carer and public ambassador with the NRS Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network and a member of its Partners in Research group. A retired physiotherapist who specialised in care of the elderly and neurological conditions, she cared for her mum through Alzheimer's disease and now helps researchers shape studies that reflect what people with dementia and their families really face.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

Lesley Cousland narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.When eight research requests landed on care homes at around the same time, the team at ENRICH Scotland stopped to take stock. Each study made sense on its own, so what did they add up to for a busy home?In this blog Lesley looks at that question from three sides: the researcher chasing a recruitment target, the organisation passing requests along, and the care home deciding whether it has room to say yes. She considers what makes taking part worthwhile for a home, why “not now” deserves respect as an answer, and what researchers owe the people who gave their time once the study is over.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-care-home-research-getting-the-balance-right/--Lesley Cousland is a Clinical Studies Officer with the Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network and ENRICH Scotland. A retired mental health nurse with over 40 years’ experience, she now supports research in care homes, ensuring residents and staff help shape studies that matter to them.Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network 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

Beccy Owen narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.PhD life can shrink to the size of a lab bench. In this blog Beccy describes two experiences that took her well beyond it. The first was a week of kayaking, climbing and gorge walking in the Lake District with her doctoral training partnership. The second was a day explaining her research to Formula 1 fans while volunteering for Race Against Dementia at Silverstone. Between them, they changed how she thinks about teamwork, collaboration and communicating science. She makes the case that difference is what makes a team work, and that a PhD might be an individual qualification, but science is a team sport.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-beyond-the-lab-bubble-phd-teamwork/--Beccy Owen is a PhD Researcher at the University of Warwick, exploring how tau pathology disrupts neuronal ion channels and brain network activity in Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Programme, her work uses electrophysiology to better understand the molecular drivers of neurodegeneration. Originally from the Welsh countryside, Beccy’s passion for dementia research was shaped during her postgraduate studies and through personal experience with a family member living with the condition. She will be sharing her journey, insights, and lessons learned throughout her PhD here on the blog.Find Becky on LinkedIn--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

Bernie McInally narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher.A panda study that leaves out every panda in a zoo would be laughed out of peer review. Yet for years dementia research has done something very similar with care homes, where a large share of people living with dementia actually live.This blog looks at the warnings new researchers hear before they ever walk through a care home door: recruitment, ethics, capacity, busy staff, worried families. It asks whether those are reasons to stay away or simply parts of the job to plan for. Expect tea, reminiscence, a fair amount of custard, and a case for getting early career researchers into care homes rather than talking them out of it.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-pandas-dementia-and-why-we-need-to-reach-early-career-researchers/Bernie McInally is a Clinical Studies Officer at NHS Lothian and the Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network. Bernie's background is in Nursing, working in Mental Health and with Older People. He retired from full time NHS clinical work, and is now back working in Clinical Research supporting delivery of the Enabling Research in Care Homes (ENRICH) Scotland. He is passionate about research delivery, and opening access to people in all communities.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 Yvonne Couch narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.UKRI is changing how it assesses grants. The plans include fewer and longer awards, distributed peer review, triage by institutions before bids reach the funder, interviews for some awards, and a trial of AI-assisted assessment.In this blog Yvonne, weighs up what that means for researchers. Longer grants could bring real stability and more ambitious science. But the researchers caught between early-career schemes and programme grants may find the door narrower than ever. Drawing on Claartje Vinkenburg's work on "selling science", Yvonne argues that every assessment method selects for something: writing skill, institutional status or confidence. The real question is how closely any of them tracks the ability to do excellent research.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-ukri-grant-assessment-changes/--Dr Yvonne Couch is an Associate Professor of Neuroimmunology at the University of Oxford. Yvonne studies the role of extracellular vesicles and their role in changing the function of the vasculature after stroke, aiming to discover why the prevalence of dementia after stroke is three times higher than the average. It is her passion for problem solving and love of science that drives her, in advancing our knowledge of disease. Yvonne shares her opinions, talks about science and explores different careers topics in her monthly blogs - she does a great job of narrating too.--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 Clíona Farrell narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.In 1986 Carol Jennings, a teacher from Coventry, answered an appeal in the Alzheimer's Society newsletter with a letter and a hand-drawn family tree. Her family went on to reveal the London mutation in the APP gene, and forty years of Alzheimer's research grew from it, reaching the first disease-modifying treatments shortly before Carol's own death from the disease in 2024.In this blog Clíona, reports from a UCL200 screening of the BBC documentary The Jennings vs Alzheimer's and the panel that followed. The panel was Stuart Jennings, Prof Catherine Mummery, Prof Nick Fox and Dr Richard Oakley of Alzheimer's Society. The audience wanted to know how anyone can stay hopeful when today's drugs do so little, and the answer came back that this is the start, not the end. From there the discussion turned to what is holding the field back. Diagnosis and post-diagnostic support are underfunded, and stigma still keeps people away from their GP. Researchers are too often poor at explaining their own progress, and dementia sits a long way behind cancer on public health effort. It closes with Carol's habit of asking not why, but what, and her husband's call for everyone to keep putting that question to the people with power to act.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-forty-years-of-dementia-progress-carol-jennings/--Dr Clíona Farrell is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London. Her work focuses on understanding neuroinflammation in Down syndrome, both prior to, and in response to, Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, Clíona completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience in Trinity College, and then worked as a research assistant in the Royal College of Surgeons studying ALS and Parkinson’s disease. She also knows the secret behind scooping the perfect 99 ice-cream cone.--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

Beccy Owne narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher.Beccy, a PhD student at the University of Warwick studying how tau disrupts ion channels in Alzheimer's disease, is nearly halfway through her PhD and looks back at what it has taught her away from the bench. She explains why research runs on a much longer clock than undergraduate or master's projects, why not knowing the answer is the whole point, and how a flash talk given two weeks into her studies changed how she handles new challenges in and out of the lab. She also covers keeping work and home separate, learning by doing, teaching in the lab, and treating failed experiments as a normal part of science. A good listen for anyone in the early years of a PhD, or anyone wondering if they're on track.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-10-things-my-phd-has-taught-me-so-far/--Beccy Owen is a PhD Researcher at the University of Warwick, exploring how tau pathology disrupts neuronal ion channels and brain network activity in Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Programme, her work uses electrophysiology to better understand the molecular drivers of neurodegeneration. Originally from the Welsh countryside, Beccy’s passion for dementia research was shaped during her postgraduate studies and through personal experience with a family member living with the condition. She will be sharing her journey, insights, and lessons learned throughout her PhD here on the blog.Find Becky on LinkedIn--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.Failure in academia gets treated here as a structural problem before it gets treated as a personal one. The starting point is that this is one of very few careers where a run of setbacks can genuinely end the job, so the emotional weight attached to ordinary professional rejection is not a resilience deficit, it is a symptom of the environment. From there the focus shifts to what group leaders can actually do. Being open enough about small mistakes that they get discussed rather than hidden.Training junior team members properly so they can ask the questions they think are stupid. And the harder one: how you react on the day someone drops a stack of unlabelled sample plates, or damages an ultracentrifuge rotor beyond repair. Two contrasting stories cover exactly that, and the difference in lab atmosphere afterwards lasted months. Also here: the "Not Yet" board in Oxford where twenty rejections earns the team a dinner, CVs of failures, the case for the narrative CV, why putting on a brave face may be feeding burnout rates in academia, and when to hand someone to proper support rather than carrying it yourself.https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/blog-building-labs-where-its-safe-to-fail/--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