Advancing Dementia Research
Elisabeth Pestell
‘I have been inspired by the work carried out in my home town so much so that I decided to set up a scholarship to support early stage researchers working on ageing diseases.’
Elisabeth Pestell was born and brought up in Newcastle and her interest in research into ageing diseases was ignited after seeing a TV programme celebrating the work of researchers at Newcastle’s Institute for Ageing and Health. Elisabeth’s mother suffered from Parkinson’s dementia and her husband Gordon is now struggling with vascular dementia.
As a long-term carer, she has seen first-hand how these diseases can debilitate loved ones “it is a heart-breaking struggle for my husband on a daily basis and I have always been determined to help him retain his self-worth as we work with the doctors to understand more about his condition.”
It gives me great pleasure to donate because I am fascinated by the science. New research is essential to further understand disease in older age and I believe we will see the benefits very soon: there are great challenges ahead in tackling ageing and, for me, the younger generation are our future.”
Professor David Burn
“Throughout my career, I have been dedicated to understanding more about how we age and our work is currently looking at finding earlier identifiers in diseases such as Parkinson’s and dementia as they develop in our bodies. An early diagnosis is crucial if doctors are to prescribe the right drugs for people with the illness to help them control their symptoms. The next stage is for us to develop interventions which will help manage and potentially reverse the disease.
In the past ten years we have built one of the world’s leading centres for research into age-related disease and I believe that with increased support we will develop a first for the UK which will be a centre for clinicians, scientists and our large patient cohorts to working together on solving the problems associated with diseases which are linked to brain function.”
Support medical students who are taking forward medical research projects.
