Video highlights need for dementia research volunteers

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Alzheimer's Research UK have released a short video on YouTube which it hopes will encourage more people to volunteer to help out in dementia research.

Entitled Help Make a Difference in Dementia Research, the clip states that someone develops dementia every three minutes and highlights the need for more studies into preventions and treatments.

The video show Morag, who has an early stage of Alzheimer's disease, and her husband John as they come to grips with the condition and look at research.

Martin Rossor, director of the NIHR's dementia and neurodegenerative diseases research network, said: "We hope this video shows what it’s like to be part of a clinical research study.

"Morag and John are just two of the 16,000 people that took part in dementia-related research over the last year and we hope that their story encourages even more people to get involved in research."

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, added that people with dementia and their carers are important to research because they are "experts on their own condition".

It is estimated that around 820,000 people are currently living with some form of dementia in the UK. However, that figure is expected to rise above one million by 2021.

Alzheimer's Research has spent more than £20 million on research in the past two years. Recently, the charity awarded £45,000 to Dr Nina Balthasar of the University of Bristol so that she can begin investigating ways in which brain cells can be protected from the cognitive condition.

In particular, her team will look at how the protein Tau builds up and interferes with 'power stations' known as mitrochondria that help cells to function correctly.

Dr Balthasar said it is her mission to find a way which mitrochondria can be made more resilient.

The video can be watched HERE