Dementia is one of the cruellest diseases people can experience - isolating, frustrating, and often very frightening both for individuals and their loved ones. To give a sense of its prevalence, it was estimated that around 982,000 people were living with dementia in the UK in May 2024, with this number projected to increase to 1.4 million by 2040.
The Alzheimer’s Society works tirelessly to help people and their loved ones when they have experienced a dementia diagnosis, supporting them through the different stages, from initial grief to practical needs, as well as fundraising for much-needed research and treatments.
As a community-focused business, Chestertons has a proud history of partnering with the Alzheimer's Society. We do what we can to raise awareness and funding wherever possible, and support local branches of this incredible charity within the communities where we work.
Here, we wanted to shed a light on dementia, the incredible work of the Alzheimer's Society, and invite you to help wherever you can.
Dementia is defined by the National Institute of Aging as:
"the loss of cognitive functioning — thinking, remembering, and reasoning — to such an extent that it interferes with a person's daily life and activities. Some people with dementia cannot control their emotions, and their personalities may change."
However, dementia is not one disease - it’s a catch-all term for a range of diseases with similar symptoms, caused by abnormal changes in the brain.
Dementia can range in its severity from fairly mild issues such as forgetting things - which can often be misconstrued as a normal sign of ageing - through to much more debilitating problems such as difficulty speaking, hallucinating, and ultimately an inability to care for oneself.
Crucially, dementia is progressive - symptoms do accumulate and get worse over time, which is why it's important to get a diagnosis early on, so it can be managed appropriately to slow it down where possible and to maximise quality of life.
There are currently considered to be four main types of dementia. They can all impact people differently and at different rates, but they do have some common symptoms, especially early on. The four main types are:
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It's described as a physical illness damaging the brain, affecting the memory and capacity to think. It starts a long time before symptoms manifest, and its highest risk factor is age.
Common early symptoms include:
● Trouble remembering things
● Difficulties with thinking and reasoning
● Struggling with language
● Changes to how they see and hear things
● Mood alterations
Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia, and typically manifests with people struggling to solve problems, make decisions, or organise plans. It's caused by reduced blood flow and oxygen to the brain, damaging brain cells and sometimes resulting in strokes. The causes can vary enormously, but some lifestyle factors such as an unhealthy diet, smoking, lack of exercise, and drinking too much alcohol can be associated with it. Health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes can also be a factor.
Common early symptoms include:
● Trouble planning, organising, making decisions or solving problems
● Difficulty following a series of steps (like cooking a meal)
● Slower speed of thought
● Problems concentrating
● Sudden confusion
Dementia with Lewy bodies has been put under more of a spotlight since it transpired that the late Robin Williams had suffered from it. Caused by Lewy body disease (which itself doesn't appear to have a known cause), which is a progressive illness characterised by a buildup of protein in nerve cells, it causes a collection of symptoms, some of which are similar to Parkinson's, which often leads to misdiagnosis.
Common symptoms of DLB include:
● Trouble staying focused
● Difficulty making decisions
● Memory loss
● Problems with the way they see things around them
● Hallucinations
● problems staying awake
● Difficulty with movement
● Disturbed sleep
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a less common type of dementia and is most associated with changes in personality and behaviour, or trouble with language. It's typically diagnosed in people under the age of 65, and happens when there's damage to nerve cells in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. There are two types of FTD:
1) Behavioural variant FTD, which mainly causes problems with behaviour and personality
2) Primary progressive aphasia (PPA), which often leads to trouble remembering words and names of objects.
The main risk factor for FTD is a family history of the disease.
Common early symptoms of FTD include:
For Behavioural variant FTD
● Difficulty focusing and becoming distracted easily
● Trouble planning, organising and making decisions
● Socially inappropriate behaviour
● Inability to understand what others might be thinking or feeling
● Loss of motivation to do things they used to enjoy
● Having less of a sense of humour or inappropriate humour
● New obsessive behaviours
● Craving sweet, fatty foods or carbohydrates
● Forgetting table manners
● No longer knowing when to stop eating, drinking alcohol or smoking
For Primary progressive aphasia
● Loss of vocabulary
● Forgetting what familiar objects are used for
● Speaking differently (much more slowly)
● Using shorter or simpler sentences
● Leaving out words
● Saying the opposite of what they mean
● Difficulty physically speaking
● Difficulty swallowing or moving
Practically, the cumulative impact of dementia symptoms is a loss of independence as judgement becomes impaired and individuals often lose the ability to perform basic tasks. However, the impact goes much deeper than practical need, causing emotional pain, often enormous frustration and upset, depression, social withdrawal and isolation, particularly if it goes undiagnosed. The impact on families is also extremely challenging, with feelings of having lost a loved one who is still here, as well as problems managing care, from the emotional to the financial.
The Alzheimer's Society offers a lifeline for those with a dementia diagnosis, and their loved ones. They raise awareness about the disease to encourage better understanding, fund research, and deliver support services. For more than 45 years they have been campaigning to make dementia a priority.
Key facts that highlight the desperate need for their work include:
● Dementia is the UK's biggest killer
● Every three minutes someone in the UK develops dementia
● One in every three people born in the UK today will go on to develop dementia in their lifetime
Chestertons is proud to be a corporate partner of the Alzheimer's Society with our teams proactively fundraising to support research, train expert advisers, and provide a lifeline support for individuals and families.
Many of our team members have experienced dementia within their own families, and have taken on their own challenges. For example, last year Charlie Pearce, Associate Manager at Chestertons, took on the Brighton Marathon in memory of his grandmother, and we encourage all our offices to contribute where they can.
If you would like to get involved with the Alzheimer's Society, you can donate via their website, join a fundraising event, or organise your own. You can even join their amazing team of volunteers!