Another hugely successful fundraising event was held of 23rd October at Teignmouth Social Club. This featured a darts knock-out tournament in memory of David Head, a great friend of John Pearce, a member of The Young Ones, together with a jumbo prize raffle. The darts match was won by Teign Brewery, who then very generously donated their prize money to The Young Ones, bringing the total raised on the night to over £2,000. Our thanks go to everyone who gave financial donations, to the people who donated gifts for the raffle and to those who came along, bought tickets and contributed to an enjoyable evening. And a very special thank you goes to John and Karen Pearce for all the hard work they put into pulling everything together so that it all ran smoothly on the night, and to Scott and the staff at Teignmouth Social Club for hosting the event and laying on a fabulous buffet.

The event was covered in the local paper, the Teignmouth Post & Gazette:

https://www.teignmouth-today.co.uk/news/thousands-raised-at-memorial-darts-night-733347

An article in The Guardian on 20 July 2024 indicated that “lesser-known forms of dementia are widely undiagnosed.” According to their health and social affairs correspondent Anna Bawden, according to official data “up to 100,000 people in England may be living with undiagnosed forms of dementia that present symptoms such as depression and hallucinations... NHS data published for the first time on Thursday shows the prevalence of two less common forms of the condition: dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia.” The shocking figures suggest that there are “between 73,000 and 109,000 people over 65 who have dementia with Lewy bodies in England, but only 15,000 have a recorded diagnosis.” Meanwhile, there are thought to be 15,000 people living with frontotemporal dementia (which makes up 2% of dementias and is “thought to be higher in younger people”) “but barely 3,000” have been formally diagnosed. James White, head of public affairs and campaigns at the Alzheimer’s Society is quoted as suggesting that “the new government must prioritise dementia by increasing diagnosis rates and setting new ambitious targets. It can’t be right that a third of people in England living with dementia don’t have a diagnosis.”

“COUNTY WILL HAVE A DEMENTIA STRATEGY” reported the Herald Express on 3 July. The article went on to point out that the Devon council area (which excludes Plymouth and Torbay) has roughly 16,000 dementia diagnoses at this point in time, but no overall strategy in place to help people living with dementia. Nigel Acheson, Devon’s chief medical officer, is quoted as saying: “dementia is a problem that all of us know someone impacted by it, and it is an area where colleagues in the voluntary sector, social care and health care have a role to play. We have set out the fact that there is no comprehensive dementia strategy in Devon, but in our aging population the proportion of older people is increasing, which is a good thing (as we’re living longer) but we have an opportunity to help older people live well.” The worrying thing is that this doesn’t seem to address the issues affecting young people living with dementia.

A report in The Guardian on 6 April revealed the shocking news that “dementia patients in England face being denied access to revolutionary new drugs because the diagnostic capacity of the NHS lags behind every other G7 country.” The feature, by Health editor Andrew Gregory, revealed that treatments to tackle the underlying causes of dementia, rather than just relieving the symptoms, have been developed but that “their effectiveness depends on prompt and early diagnosis.” And because the NHS in England “lacks the diagnostic capacity to accurately identify those eligible in time” hundreds of thousands of people could potentially miss out on receiving these treatments at a sufficiently early stage. England lacks sufficient scanners, and also has the “second lowest number of dementia specialists, a worrying fact in itself. It is predicted that the number of people living with dementia in the UK will rise from 944,000 to 1.6 million by 2050.

The Jennings Vs Alzheimer’s is “the story of a Nottingham family who are the first in the world to be diagnosed with hereditary early-onset Alzheimer’s.” This was first broadcast on BBC2 on 13 May and is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Tracey says, “It’s very sad but quite informative.”

We held our group on Thursday, 14th March at The Jolly Good Fish Shop in Teignmouth and had a wonderful fish and chip lunch together. We would highly recommend it. Fantastic chips!

On 4 May some members of The Young Ones took a Stuart Line cruise from Exmouth to Topsham and back. It was the best day of the year so far, weather-wise, and everyone had a great time, including Gus the dog. Our thanks to everyone at Stuart Line for their help and support. We thoroughly recommend the cruise as it was a great day out and very relaxing – and very informative too. For more information on Stuart Line’s outings, go to https://www.stuartlinecruises.co.uk/

Saturday 27 April sees British singer/songwriter Mike Silver playing at St Matthews Hall in Topsham. 50% of the profits will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Society (the other half being donate to the Estuary League Of Friends) and Mike will be performing a song specifically written about friends of his who are going through the dementia journey themselves.

Rowcroft Hospice is launching the South West’s first ever Dementia And Palliative Care Conference on 26 March at Buckfast Abbey Conference Centre. The day will offer invaluable insights into the latest advancements, innovations and research in dementia care and will include key speakers and experts from across the industry.

Studies in the US, reported in New Scientist in March, are linking skin damage to a number of conditions, and have suggested that there’s an association between skin damage and dementia. “A number of studies have found that people with inflammatory skin diseases are more likely to display cognitive impairment or dementia,” writes Michael Marshall. “Indeed, other research has also suggested that inflammaging plays a role in the development of these conditions.” The overarching conclusion is that caring for your skin could protect you from Alzheimer’s, heart disease and much more.

A recent report, noted in New Scientist in February, has found a link between using erectile dysfunction drugs and a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, but it appears that any conclusions drawn so far are premature. The study which took places at University College London looked at the records of over 270,000 men in the UK aged 40 or over who had a new impotence diagnosis and concluded that those prescribed Viagra or similar had an 18% lower chance of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s over the following five years. It isn’t out of the question that such a drug might protect against dementia, but at this stage considerably more work needs to be undertaken along with a controlled study to rule out any other factors which might have affected the result.