Spreading the word about dementia research

18 Apr 2017

Members of the Dementia Clinical Research Group from the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health visited Wythenshawe FM 97.2, a local radio station that also serves Wythenshawe hospital to talk about dementia and the research they are involved in.

Members of the Dementia Clinical Research Group from the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health visited Wythenshawe FM 97.2, a local radio station that also serves Wythenshawe hospital to talk about dementia and the research they are involved in.

Dr. Jemma Regan and Francine Jury were invited by host Mike George who himself is a volunteer at the hospital working with people living with dementia, after he visited a research stall the group had set up in the hospital.

In the Thursday afternoon health hour, Francine and Jemma answered common questions about dementia and the research that the dementia@manchester collaborative effort is making to understand the underlying causes of dementia and diagnose patients early enough to benefit from potential new treatments.  During the show a caller rang in to suggest that daffodil extract might be a cure for dementia.

Francine commented that “Galantamine, a drug used in the treatment of early stage and moderate Alzheimer’s disease was originally derived from daffodil bulbs which go to show that the public are a lot more aware than we give credit for”

Listeners were informed about research studies that are currently helping people with dementia including INVEST – an intervention for Parkinson’s dementias and SENSE-Cog, a study to support people who have vision or hearing loss as well as dementia.

Anyone interested in finding out more were invited to go to the Join Dementia Research website, a national campaign to support research in the UK.