What we know and what the future holds

Dementia devastates lives. It currently affects 850,000 people in the UK, a figure only set to rise; by 2021 one million people will be living with the condition and this is likely to soar to two million by 2051. Deaths from dementia are rising year on year, and it was recently announced that dementia is the leading cause of death in adults in England  and Wales. Dementia also puts a huge financial burden on the NHS and indeed the taxpayer, costing £26 billion pounds per year. 

Stark as this may sound, progress is being made in the fight against dementia, including in the field of dementia research. There are many reasons for us to be excited about what dementia research could achieve in 2017 and beyond. We remain determined to find a cure for dementia, and although this is still a long way to go, we are making progress every day. 

Decades of underfunding have left dementia research lagging more than 20 years behind the progress seen in cancer research. With an ageing population and no new dementia drugs introduced in over a decade, the need to find treatments that can slow or stop disease progression is greater than ever.