痴呆症对患者及其家人都有毁灭性的影响。

Dementia is fast becoming a global epidemic. Approximately 47.5 million people worldwide are living with the condition, a number that is set to triple by 2050. It is a symptom of a wide range of brain damaging diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and Parkinson’s disease. It places a huge economic burden on the world, costing approximately US$604 billion a year and affects 850,000 people in the UK alone.

痴呆症对患有这种状况的人和照顾他们的痴呆症都有深远的影响。它剥夺了患者的记忆，个性，最后是他们完成最简单任务的能力。

对于看护人而言，照顾痴呆症患者的影响可能是压倒性的，对他们的身心健康以及财务状况造成了损失。然而，对痴呆症的了解要比其他主要的全球健康状况（例如癌症或心血管疾病）所知，仅在过去的15年中，三种新药物疗法获得了治疗阿尔茨海默氏病的批准。

在过去的15年中，只有三种新药获得了治疗阿尔茨海默氏病的批准。

一个‘hot topic’ for research

这only way to stop the devastation wrought by dementia is through research. The good news is that dementia research is currently high on the political agenda.

早在2012年，英国总理戴维·卡梅伦（David Cameron）启动the dementia challenge。Describing the condition as “one of the greatest enemies of humanity”, he has announced that the government will当前（2015年）的研究资金是2025年的两倍。

世界卫生组织（WHO）主持了其第一个全球反对痴呆行动的部长会议on March 16-17 this year. On the first day of the conference, the UK Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, announced a $100m全球痴呆发现基金。英国还看到了最近的发布Join Dementia Research由美国国家卫生研究所（NIHR），阿尔茨海默氏症，阿尔茨海默氏症的英国研究和阿尔茨海默氏症协会建立，鼓励人们报名参加痴呆症研究。

痴呆试验

这ISRCTN registry是BioMed Central的临床试验数据库，也是众多认可平台之一，允许研究人员公开注册其临床研究。作为注册表的数据库编辑器，我对一些最新的痴呆症研究有一个令人兴奋的见解。

对潜在新药的研究只是图片的一部分。

对潜在新药的研究只是图片的一部分。痴呆症研究的范围非常广泛，还包括心理治疗和计划以提供照顾者的支持。

通过搜索注册表可以找到过去和现在痴呆研究的许多例子。它目前包含来自25个不同国家的156项痴呆症研究。在这里覆盖所有内容是不可能的，但是我挑选了一些亮点。

一个在新加坡审判例如，正在研究手机应用程序如何帮助支持痴呆症患者的护理人员。它的开发是为了帮助人们制定应对策略，减轻他们所经历的任何抑郁症，并为应对某些痴呆症患者所表现出的更具挑战性的行为问题提供支持。

同时，NIHR资助了五年的研究to tailor a home-based occupational therapy programme developed in the Netherlands for patients with mild to moderate dementia for the UK. Many patients taking part in the Dutch study became more able to carry out their normal daily activities, and found that both their mood and general quality of life improved.

在进行可行性研究之后，英国研究人员现在正在进行一项随机对照试验，以测试这种新干预是否可以与原始研究产生相似的结果，并允许痴呆症患者享受其通常的日常生活并尽可能长时间独立。

另一项研究，目前正在寻找参与者，正在研究记住，谈论和分享重要的记忆和事件是否有助于患有轻度至中度记忆问题的痴呆症患者。这被称为“回忆和生活评论”疗法。

要求患者记住一个怀旧的事件，或者听一种对他们具有特殊意义的音乐，然后描述它使他们的感觉。研究人员希望更多地了解这种疗法对痴呆症患者的任何潜在心理影响。

Future of dementia research

Up until now, funding into dementia has lagged significantly behind other main disease areas such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

这se are exciting times for scientists working in dementia research. Up until now, funding into dementia has lagged significantly behind other main disease areas such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Recent pledges to put the condition high on the public health agenda should increase both public awareness and investment. For example, with major pharmaceutical companies on board, the global Dementia discovery fund aims to invest in promising new avenues of research from which it is hoped that new treatments can be developed.

Public awareness has also begun to increase. For example, the new Join Dementia Research service has already signed up over 6000 volunteers. It is hoped that global research on dementia will lead to new ways to halt progression of the disease by 2025 or perhaps even find a cure. This means that people in their forties today (myself included) will not have to face this terrible disease.

With that in mind, I look forward to registering many more studies on dementia as this area of research begins to expand.