Dementia: Catching the memory thief

It's over a hundred years since the first case of Alzheimer’s disease was diagnosed. Since then we’ve learned a great deal about the protein ‘tangles’ and ‘plaques’ that cause the disease. How close are we to having effective treatments - and could we even prevent dementia from occurring in the first place? Researchers at the University of Cambridge describe some of the progress now being made against this devastating disease.

[@mathewsjoy156]

Educating the family of the patient is also very important. The video was indeed very informative. Thanks

[@Gwin62989]

To the geneticist that got dementia, a Star Wars quote: "Ironic, he could save others but not himself."

[@imadrajput6675]

I wonder if having a higher level of education directly links to how nerves in the brain decay, maybe education leads to the more frequent exercises of impulses through those nerves causing them to continue in good health like how exercise keeps muscles in better condition throughout old age.

[@DoctorDP100]

I was starting to think that this film was colluding with the idea that there's nothing to be done but donate to medical research and wait for the scientists to make a pill. Then Prof Carol Brayne's work was introduced and that completed the film for me. Her team's work is groundbreaking I think. It shows pretty convincingly that in 2011, there were over 200,000 people in the UK who had avoided developing dementia in spite of the ageing of the population, probably through improvements in population health. We can only hope that our health continues to improve, in spite of obesity and Type 2 diabetes increasing.

[@neponsetriver]

Is the music track loud enough?

[@zxninjaturtle]

optogentics as a option?

[@amankansah398]

second!

[@exod4]

First!