Dementia Researcher Blogs

Dr Diana Karamacoska narrates her blog written for the ISTAART Partnering with Research Participants PIA, shared by Dementia Researcher ( this blog has also been published in Spanish ). People from culturally diverse backgrounds, particularly those that do not speak English, tend to be excluded from dementia research. This is a pressing issue considering the disparities associated with these popul...

Gabriela Caballero narra un blog escrito por la Dra. Diana Karamacoska publicado en Dementia Researcher en nombre de ISTAART Partnering with Research Participants PIA (This blog has also been published in English). Las personas de orígenes culturalmente diversos, particularmente aquellas que no hablan inglés, tienden a ser excluidas de las investigaciones sobre la demencia. Este es un tema urgente...

Hannah Hussain narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Hannah discusses Health Outcomes. It is well known that some groups in the population have significantly poorer health outcomes and worse experiences of using health and care services than others. Overall, experts agree that the best health outcome following interaction with healthcare services or delivery of an interve...

Dr Megan Polden narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In her first blog for Dementia Researcher, Megan writes about her passion for older peoples research and improving the lives of people living with dementia. We hear about the amazing work on her PhD, which explored the use of eyetracking technology as a biomarker, and now about the plans for her first postdoc position, evaluating a...

Dr Victoria Shepherd narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Do you have experience of struggling to recruit people to your research study? Both Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimers’ Society have highlighted the shockingly low participation in dementia research compared to other major health conditions. Recent announcements of a ‘national mission’ to tackle dementia and funding to str...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. If you follow Sam's work with Dementia Researcher you may have stumbled upon his podcast series “Food for Thought”. It’s a show Sam sits down with medical doctors who specialise in treating their patients by complementing modern medicine with well-evidenced, beneficial diet and lifestyle choices. They talk about the best foods you c...

Dr Gaia Brezzo narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. It’s from the comfort of her living room sofa that Gaia writes her final blog for 2022, cup of tea in hand and a purring cat on her lap as she taps away on the keyboard. This month, to round up 2022, Gaia decided to blog about what she has achieved – and not achieved – this year, as she reflects back on another year of her science a...

Adam Smith narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Are you making a resolution in the new year? Warning: More than half of all resolutions fail, but this year, they don’t have to be yours. Adam shares his simple resolutions and shares some top tips to become part of the small group of people that successfully achieve their goals. Find the original text, and narration here on our website...

Dr Clarissa Giebel narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Academia can feel rushed at the best of times, and like going at 200 kilometres an hour at the most intense of times. Depending on your career stage, that can involve grant writing, papers, analysis, leading meetings and international projects, work trips (the most exciting bits of the job!!), presenting your work at conferences...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. OK so that title was really boring. Apologies. But on the upside, it’s super obvious what we’re going to talk about today. For this one, Yvonne was inspired by two things. A chat with a junior colleague (who will know who she is if she’s listening) and the amazing Lonely Pipette podcast episode with Jen Heemstra. Yvon...

Dr Connor Richardson narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Connor is back to the second part of his introduction to the dementia researcher blog. In this piece Connor introduces himself as a researcher, with a tour of his career so far - with a great demonstration how one move, leads to the next. Find the original text, and narration here on our website. https://www.dementiaresearcher...

Nathan Stephens narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Dementia is rarely considered a market issue, well at least not explicitly. Yet the unequitable distribution of care and support, cost of care and unpaid care, and inequality of information are symptoms of a ‘failed market’. This is according to the Treasury’s Green Book which identifies four domains of market failure: under-provis...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. It’s that time of year again. Time to go “really?! End of the year already?!” The time where you maybe take a second to look back on the year and reflect on what has happened, what maybe didn’t happen and what you want to do next year to keep moving forwards. That’s Sam's topic for this month and he hopes you will join him for the r...

Dr Clarissa Giebel narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In October, we were finally able to attend the Alzheimer’s Europe Conference in person again. Each year the INTERDEM – a European network of dementia researchers focusing on Early detection and timely INTERvention in DEMentia,  take the oppertunity to meet. In this blog Clarissa discusses a new initative to research Inequalities...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Kam is currently in the depths of that feeling most, if not all, academics experience throughout their careers, the feeling of failing. Three hits in as many months is enough to give anyone pause for thought! A grant application that doesn't get through to the next round, failure to get a paper published, and then an internal gr...

Dr Gaia Brezzo narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Gaia is planning to attend an early career (ECR) event in person early next month. Even as a postdoc with quite a few years of experience under her belt, she still has that niggling feeling of guilt when she takes time away from the lab and the foreboding anxious wait to see if it was actually worth it. In this blog Gaia shares her...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Today Yvonne is talking science for, not opinions (although a few may creep in). This particular post was inspired by her recent attendance at an ARUK event. Almost everyone attending was working on clinical cohorts and everyone else, with the exception of Yvonne, was working on iPSCs. So today's blog is about induced...

Dr Aida Suárez-Gonzalez narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. ReadClear is an app to support reading in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA). Aida and her team co-produced the service with a group of people living with PCA, and then went on to test it in a randomised clinical trial. Aida has blogged about the value of this PPI process in the past but has never written about how she suppor...

Dr Connor Richardson narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. We're delighted to welcome a new blogger to our staff contributor line-up. Welcome to Dr Connor Richardson, Neuro-epidemiology Research Associate in the Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute. In this first blog we get a gentle introduction to his background, and a taster of the things to come in his future...

Nathan Stephens narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Questionaries are one of the most common data collection tools in the business along with interviews and focus groups. You’ve probably completed one, or at least been asked to. Yet if you’ve never designed a questionnaire there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. After Nathans recent experience of developing questionnaires, he i...

Adam Smith asked us to interupt our usual schedule to bring you some special news... The 2022 Dementia Research Charity Chatathon LIVE will take place on Friday 2nd December. Adam will host 12+ hours non-stop chat with over 60 researchers and special guests working accross all areas of discovery to beat Alzheimer's disease and all forms of dementia. Raising money for Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzhe...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog for Tech and Dementia Week, Yvonne talks about the amount of data people are generating, whether we can harness it for good using things like artificial intelligence, and how to approach these big data generating techniques properly without turning them into one epic fishing expedition. As ever, Yvonne br...

Danielle Wilson narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Works in the UK Dementia Research Institute, Care Research & Technology Group at Imperial College London. In this blog Danielle discusses her passion of tech research and its ability to augment care, and about some of the work being done within the UKDRI to drive this forward, at the cutting edge of support (if you enjoy this you s...

Thaïs Caprioli narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Within the last two decades, the use of information communication technology (ICT) to deliver health and social care services has received considerable attention. The possible role of ICT to increase the number of people accessing care, whilst aligning with a cost-saving agenda, forms an enticing solution to an underfunded health an...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Historically, cognitive assessments for dementia diagnosis have relied on pencil and paper measures administered by a clinician. These tests are designed to evaluate various cognitive domains, such as memory, visuospatial abilities, and language, and should indicate whether there are potential signs of dementia. However, perform...