Author Terry's brave fight for Alzheimer's patients
He recently presented a 20,000 signature petition to Gordon Brown urging the Government to step up its financial support for dementia research and opened the new headquarters of RICE, the Institute for the Care of Older People at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where Terry was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year.
But it saddened me to read also in the Western Daily Press how, adding insult to injury, more than 1,500 care-home beds for people with dementia have been lost in the past four years across the West – despite warnings of a dementia timebomb.
Gordon Brown should take note and get this message loud and clear. More financial support is needed before it's too late for Alzheimer sufferers who feel sadly let down by our Government because it buries its head in the sand over this issue.
The last 20 years have seen a great surge in research devoted to finding treatments and/or cures for Alzheimer's disease.
Although the exact cause of Alzheimer's disease is still unknown, the flood of research during the last 20 years has revealed so much about the progression of the disease that beneficial treatments are likely to begin appearing in the near future and to continue improving with time.
Alzheimer's disease, let's remember, happens to people, not just to their brains.
We may have to remind ourselves to keep this in mind in light of the emphasis on cognition and neurology given in much of the current literature on Alzheimer's and related disorders.
Things have evolved since 1975 in the field of geriatrics and dementia care, and we have become a society thirsting for knowledge about the late-life dementia which may await so many of us and their families who have been to hell and back.
Terry Pratchett, in my opinion, is on the side of the angels and I'm sure we may see a cure very soon, with medical science coming up trumps.
D F Courtney Weston-super-Mare
