The lovely lady pictured is Paul's Gran, who sadly passed away at the grand old age of 94. Sadly, she was diagnosed with dementia shortly before her death; however looking back through our memories, it is obvious that the disease had taken a grip of her a long time before her diagnosis. 

Thankfully when Paul and I got married in 2014, Gran had a brilliant time, as you can probably tell from the picture (don't worry, this wasn't her choice of outfit, she was having fun in our fancy dress photo booth!). Paul and I have some fantastic memories of Gran from this day and we are so thankful that she was with us and enjoyed herself so much. It wasn't long after this day however that she started to deteriorate and was no longer the Gran that we all knew and loved. 

Paul and I are setting ourselves the challenge to run further than we ever have before and to raise at least £1,000 each for a very worthy cause, Alzheimer's Research UK, who fund research into the causes and treatment of Alzheimer's and dementia. 

My lovely husband and I will be running The Great North Run on Sunday 8th September 2019, as part of Marge Ainsley's 40 x 40 team, well as taking part in a number of fundraising events over the next few months. Watch this space!!

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, affecting 62 per cent of those diagnosed.

There are 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, with numbers set to rise to over 1 million by 2025. This will soar to 2 million by 2051.

225,000 will develop dementia this year, that’s one every three minutes.

1 in 6 people over the age of 80 have dementia.

70 per cent of people in care homes have dementia or severe memory problems.

There are over 40,000 people under 65 with dementia in the UK.

These statistics are truly terrifying and highlights how vital it is for more research to be performed in relation to this awful disease. There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease or any other type of dementia. Delaying the onset of dementia by five years would halve the number of deaths from the condition, saving 30,000 lives a year.

What your donation will go towards:

Alzheimer’s Research UK receive no government funding for their research and are completely dependent on supporters to fund their research programme:

£20 raised pays for 1 hour of pioneering dementia research

£100 raised could provide the tools for scientists to map 10,000 genes in minute detail, identifying targets for the development of new treatments

£500 raised will cover the cost of a sensitive brain scan for a patient involved in a research study, tracking the effectiveness of new drug treatments, improving diagnosis and better understanding how diseases like Alzheimer’s wreak their havoc in the brain

£1000 raised will pay for reagents, unique chemicals that are crucial for successfully growing cells in a laboratory ready for disease study

£2500 raised will allow researchers to buy synthetically made amyloid, to better understand this hallmark Alzheimer’s protein in the lab.

Please give generously folks!

Love Kirsty

xxxxx

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