Kunstmuseum Den Haag tour sparks senses of people with dementia and their carers Eight people approached a fragrant carpet of lavender in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag gallery. Four of them had dementia and four were their relatives and carers. “Put your nose nearer the ground and smell it, it’s wonderful!” called Annie Versteeg, 88, to Bwieuwkje Bruinenberg-Haisma, 90, in her wheelchair nearby. “This tour is about colour and here we have a colour and it goes with a smell,” said Yke Prins, the museum guide. “Do you know what it is? It is lavender. What does it make you think about ..read more

Ex-Labour leader initially planned to sell personal and political documents to Canadian university for £212,500 The former UK prime minister Harold Wilson agreed to sell his archive of private papers to help fund his care, official documents have revealed. Papers released by the National Archives and identified by the BBC show Lord Wilson initially planned to sell the collection to McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, for £212,500 – the equivalent of about £700,000 in today’s money ..read more

Readers respond to Michael Aylwin’s article about his wife’s dementia I am not ashamed to say that I wept while reading Michael Aylwin’s article (‘It comes for your very soul’: how Alzheimer’s undid my dazzling, creative wife in her 40s’, 9 July). He has articulated so many of the feelings and experiences that my wife and I have encountered across the more than 10 years since her diagnosis. She too feared Alzheimer’s – her mother having died of the condition four years after diagnosis. Reaching the decision to place my wife in a care home, 58 years after making those wedding vows in church, to ..read more

Kate Bingham says ageing population means tackling dementia must be treated as economic imperative A Covid-style effort is needed to ensure NHS patients are first in line for a new wave of dementia drugs, according to the former head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce. Kate Bingham is calling for the immediate recruitment of large numbers of patients to ensure that, as with Covid vaccines, the UK is a leading player in testing and launching drugs ..read more

By the time my wife got a diagnosis, her long and harrowing deterioration had already begun. By the end, I was in awe of her My wife always said she would die of Alzheimer’s. It turns out she was right about that. For years, I insisted she would not. In the end, Vanessa clinched our little argument by dying last September, but we had known her fate since 2019, the year she was diagnosed, at the age of 49. For at least three years before that, though, the realisation dawned by hideous degrees which way the debate was going. When we met, in the mid-00s, the proposition that Vanessa did not have ..read more

Eli Lilly says Kisunla demonstrated ‘meaningful results’ for people showing early symptoms of the disease Federal health authorities on Tuesday gave approval to an experimental new drug that has shown to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in trials. Donanemab, manufactured by Eli Lilly, is the second medication that has won the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients showing early symptoms of the disease, most prominently cognitive impairment ..read more

Study is first to track people at different time points in life and finds close link between nutrition and cognitive ability A healthy diet earlier in life could help keep you mentally sharp into your 70s, and even ward off dementia, according to research that followed thousands of Britons for seven decades. While most studies on diet and cognitive ability have focused on people already in or reaching old age, the new review was the first to track people throughout their life – from the age of four to 70 – and suggests the links may start much earlier than previously recognised ..read more

Plans to fund adult care have been derided as a ‘dementia tax’ or a ‘death tax’. The carers I visited showed me that what they need is both urgent and simple In a church hall in suburban Croydon, south London, a familiar Beatles medley plays. The crowd sways and sings along, and an 80-year-old woman reaches out to hold her husband’s hand. Paul has vascular dementia and can no longer speak, but he smiles occasionally as if in recognition. His wife, Jill, says they were sent home after his diagnosis with nothing but an information booklet and the sinking feeling that they were on their own, sinc ..read more

Scan could become routine procedure in memory clinics if findings confirmed in larger cohort, scientists say A 10-minute brain scan could detect dementia several years before people develop noticeable symptoms, a study suggests. Scientists used a scan of “resting” brain activity to identify whether people would go on to develop dementia, with an estimated 80% accuracy up to nine years before people received a diagnosis. If the findings were confirmed in a larger cohort, the scan could become a routine procedure in memory clinics, scientists said ..read more

Matt Singleton is a gerontologist who has written a book around the 1966 World Cup which aims to stimulate memories Seven years ago Matt Singleton’s father, Brian, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and one of the immediate consequences was that he stopped reading. “That was his main pastime when he wasn’t working, along with football,” says Matt. “Suddenly I was no longer able to buy him books for things like birthdays and Father’s Day, so I started to write them myself for fun.” Matt publishes his books now, in association with the Alzheimer’s Society ..read more