Dementia Support Line
£250m for new UK Dementia Research Institute
From the Summer 2016 edition of Care and cure magazine, see how Alzheimer's Society is dedicated to funding research into many aspects of dementia. This involves not only looking for the underlying biomedical causes of the condition and investigating potential treatments and cures, but also finding ways to better care for people living with the condition today.
With this in mind, we are increasing our focus on care research with new grants of up to £2 million that will help researchers to investigate important aspects of dementia care. In order to ensure that we are addressing real needs and tackling common issues within dementia care, we held a consultation among our staff, Research Network volunteers and service users to find out what mattered most to them.
The consultation provided four priority areas for our researchers to focus on – support after a diagnosis, how to remain independent at home for longer, care for advanced dementia and how to improve quality of life. Other considerations that the researchers can take into account include how to accommodate people who have other conditions alongside dementia, how to involve harder-to-reach communities and how the results of the research will be put into practice.
The funding will be available for a maximum of five years and the grants must have a strong focus on making a difference to the lives of people living with dementia. The successful projects will be announced in Spring 2017.
Focusing more on care research is a vital part of the work of Alzheimer's Society, as we aim to improve the lives of people who are affected by dementia now or who may be in the future. Best practice in dementia care can only happen with high-quality, evidence-based research behind it, and grants such as these will ensure that we build on existing work in four key areas. The results will have the potential to address some of the major issues facing dementia care.
