Dementia Researcher Blogs

Dr Becky Carlyle, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this candid blog, Becky reflects on the reality of feeling overwhelmed during a demanding stage of an academic career. She describes the competing pressures of grant writing, teaching, leadership roles, family life and supporting research teams, while still finding joy in discovery and mentoring. Becky shares pract...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. This blog explores how storytelling strengthens science communication across papers, presentations, and public engagement. Yvonne reflects on lessons from podcasts, conferences, and outreach work to show how understanding your audience can transform how research is shared. Drawing on personal experiences and examples...

Dr Emma Law, narrating her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Clinical trials in dementia rely on carefully designed safeguards to protect participants and ensure treatments are tested responsibly. Emma Law explains how safety is built into every stage of a trial, from ethical recruitment and consent to screening processes, monitoring, and staff training. In this blog Emma highlight...

Rahul Sidhu, narrating a new blog he wrote for the Dementia Researcher website. We're pleased to welcome Rahul as a new regular contributor to the Dementia Researcher blog. In this post Rahul reflects on his route into neuroscience, from early uncertainty and academic setbacks to finding purpose through dementia research. He shares how personal experience, persistence, and discovery in the lab sha...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Sam reflects on the reality of Lewy body dementia through both his research background and his experience caring for his grandfather. He explores why LBD is so difficult to diagnose, how symptoms fluctuate, and how families are often left without clarity or closure. The piece speaks to the emotional weight of uncertain...

Adam Smith narrates his post from the Dementia Researcher Community. In this post Adam reflects on conversations with carers who support people experiencing hallucinations, particularly in Lewy body dementia. Drawing on real encounters, he explores the uncertainty, emotional labour, and isolation that often sit beneath everyday care, and why awareness and shared understanding matter. Find the orig...

Ajantha Abey narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Ajantha reflects on why Lewy body disease deserves far greater attention within dementia research. Drawing on their journey from Alzheimer’s focused tau research into synuclein pathology, the blog explores co occurring disease, diagnostic challenges, biomarker advances, and why understanding overlap across conditions is e...

Dr Peter Connelly narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Peter explores how dementia with Lewy bodies can present very differently from other dementias, particularly in its early stages. Drawing on clinical experience, he outlines key features including sleep disturbance, hallucinations, movement changes, and fluctuating attention, and explains how careful observation duri...

Rebecca Williams, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog, Rebecca reflects on nearly three years of blogging during her PhD and how writing regularly changed her confidence, communication skills, and sense of voice as a researcher. She shares early doubts about not being a good writer, the gradual development of her writing process, and the unexpected impact he...

Dr Lindsey Sinclair  narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Lindsey reflects on what stepping outside a long held academic home taught her about confidence, career identity, and progression. Drawing on her move from Bristol to Southampton after time in Brisbane, she explores the emotional, practical, and professional realities of changing institution, and how the shift he...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Sam reflects on his move from academia into running a university spinout and what that shift has taught him about the role of business in dementia research. He explains why funding decisions, investor confidence, and commercial risk shape which ideas progress and which fall away. Using recent industry examples, he explo...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Kam shares a personal account of discovering that content from one of her grant applications had been accessed and reused without permission. She explains the emotional and professional impact of the experience, the steps she took to establish what had happened, and the wider issues this raises about intellectual p...

Adam Smith narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. On UCAS deadline day, Adam reflects on how careers are often imagined as fixed destinations rather than evolving journeys. Drawing on his own experience, he explores how sideways moves, pauses, and apparent detours are usually acts of persistence rather than failure. The blog challenges the myth of linear progress in academia and resear...

Emily Spencer, narrating her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog, Emily reflects on the quieter strain of doing a PhD while juggling work, parenting, and limited support. She writes openly about feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and out of step with peers, and how those feelings began to shape her confidence. Through a small but meaningful moment of connection with another...

Dr Tom Russ narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Tom reflects on how dementia has traditionally been treated and researched within different medical specialties. Drawing on his experience in old age psychiatry, he considers the strengths and limits of neurology, geriatrics, and psychiatry, and argues that dementia care works best when these disciplines collaborate rathe...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Sam Moxon reflects on the discomfort many people feel when working in public spaces like trains or coffee shops. Drawing on British social norms and his own experience, he challenges the idea that working on the move is performative or attention seeking. Instead, he argues that flexible working can support focus, creat...

Gemma Lace, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Gemma joins our lineup of regular bloggers, and in this first post Gemma explores the moments that shaped her journey from a first in family student to Associate Dean and dementia researcher. She describes the triggers that guided her choices, from a desire to help others to a commitment to equity, inspiration, mentoring an...

Rebecca Williams, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog, Rebecca Williams reflects on the final stretch toward submitting her PhD thesis and offers a candid account of the pressure, doubt and exhaustion that shape the closing weeks. She shares how expectations about perfection created unnecessary obstacles, how imposter feelings surfaced at the moment she most...

Dr Becky Carlyle, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog Becky reflects on what recent work in molecular neurodegeneration reveals about progress in dementia research. Drawing on developments in early diagnosis, cerebrospinal fluid staging, high throughput proteomics and large scale single cell data, she explains why the past five years have transformed what we...

Dr Emma Law, narrating her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Emma reflects on a presentation at the European Alzheimer Disease Consortium that described a fully automated conversational agent to deliver the Cognitive Dementia Rating Scale in clinical trials. She explains how the CDR works, the domains it assesses, and the way scores are used to stage dementia. Emma then weighs the...

Dr Peter Connelly narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Cognitive tests are central to dementia assessment, but Peter argues we rely on them far more than we should. He traces the history from early intellectual testing through tools such as CAPE and MMSE to modern complex batteries and laboratory measures supported by artificial intelligence. Across clinic and research, he highlights...

Adam Smith narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Adam offers clear guidance for people seeking their first research assistant role. It explains how building a visible online presence, following authors whose work you admire, reaching out for short conversations, and engaging with communities can help you stand out. It also covers job alerts, broadening the types of roles...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog, Yvonne examines how competition influences scientific work, using research on tenure, prestige, field evolution, and the pressures created by short funding cycles. She outlines how incentives in academia shape behaviour at every career stage and explains how systems geared toward rapid output and visible...

Dr Jodi Watt, narrating a new blog they wrote for the Dementia Researcher website. In Jodi's final post for Dementia Researcher, they share reflections on moving to a new role after years of writing about the realities of academic life. Jodi looks back on the value of open conversations about uncertainty and community, and offers words of encouragement to others navigating job precarity. With hone...

Dr Rosie Ashworth, narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. In this blog, Rosie reflects on her journey from studying psychology to building a career in dementia research. What began as a plan to pursue clinical psychology shifted dramatically after a transformative placement working with older adults. She shares how that experience opened her eyes to the importance of older...