Dementia

Baroness Greenfield Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Greenfield (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, for drawing attention to this timely and important issue. I am a neuroscientist working on brain mechanisms that underlie dementia and, accordingly, I declare an interest as the founder and CEO of a biotech company, Neuro-Bio Ltd, which is developing a novel approach to the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. From first-hand experience, I can speak to the importance of strengthening the dementia research landscape. It is only by increasing resources for research that we will ever be able to realise if not a cure then, very plausibly and at last, a truly effective treatment. I thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its assistance in preparing these remarks on the situation in the UK, where, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, some 900,000 people are already living with dementia, a figure expected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040. As we also heard, one in three of those born today will develop the condition in their lifetime.

Yet combating this devastating disease is still not seen as the political priority it needs to be, and it has been historically underfunded. For example, just 31p is spent on dementia research for every pound invested in cancer research. That said, we should welcome the launch last year of the Government’s £95 million commitment to the Dame Barbara Windsor dementia mission, but we now need to see a delivery timeline for this funding, and we urgently request further detail about how the Government plan to invest the money.

But it is not just about the money. The APPG on Dementia, of which I am a proud member, released in 2021 a report entitled Fuelling the Moonshot, which found that people affected by dementia feel a sense of empowerment from being involved in research, but also that patients are often unaware of the opportunities to take part. This has to change—action must be taken to improve participation in, and access to, clinical trials. Recent investment in research is welcome, but it will be wasted without increased participation in these studies.

Moreover, any consideration of those living with dementia also needs to include the carers. This is where social issues should be given equal attention. In 2011, I gave a lecture tour on behalf of Alzheimer’s Australia, and I still vividly recall a conversation with a husband who had been caring for his wife, to whom he had been married for many decades. In the early hours of one morning, when he was changing her incontinence pads during a bout of diarrhoea, she, the love of his life, just stared at him, questioning who he was. It was then, he said, that he snapped. This gentleman described his situation as a “living death”, which is a phrase that I have heard repeated by other carers of those with dementia. Often, those closest undergo all the experiences of bereavement, no longer able to share memories with a very special individual who none the less is still breathing. The big difference is that society does not accord them the time and support it would to those grieving an actual death.

We need more resources for research, action on optimising clinical trials and wraparound support for the carers. Indeed, as highlighted in this debate, we need parity in health and social care. Dementia presents the biggest unmet clinical need of our time. Let us work towards a future where we are no longer haunted by the spectre that perhaps, one day, we will ask our spouse who they are, or that they in turn will describe their life with us as a living death.