I have devoted a large part of my life to raising awareness of dementia. I have done a huge amount of independent research for this, having written a large number of book chapters, reviews and original articles on dementia, especially frontotemporal dementia.

I have recently even launched a blog on quality-of-life and wellbeing in dementia.

You can go to this blog here. You can also join us on Twitter here.

This celebrates the work being done by colleagues of mine in the academic community on aspects of wellbeing in dementia, including assistive technology and telecare, cognitive neurorehabilitation, built environments, end-of-life decision-making in dementia, definitions of wellbeing, ambient technologies, optimal design of the home, person-centred care, the socio-economic argument, and UK policy.

I am very happy to be writing a book drawing on the work of about ten prominent labs in the UK on this subject. It is a pity that real individuals with dementia or immediates, as well as hard working NHS doctors and nurses and academic researchers, are not given an opportunity to talk about their experiences. This field  is dominated by professional third sector officers and their bosses looking for marketing chances sadly, but who do not have a strong working background specifically in this field otherwise.

However, I feel it is an extremely important area, and I am very proud to support it. I am off to an international conference in India in December 2012 for the World Federation of Neurology to discuss the subject with colleagues who are also experts in the field.