Are we nearly there yet?

It’s funny what makes connections sometimes.

As I was driving home yesterday, I had to stop in a narrow road while a harassed mother shepherded her very young children into the front and back seats of her car. She came over and apologised but I told her not to worry – I’m a parent too.

For some reason I then remembered driving to France for our holiday nine years ago. We had travelled a whole four miles when a three year old voice piped up from the back seat, “Are we nearly there yet?”

Which in turn made me think of dementia research (“Eh?” I hear you say). Most of us are in the position of small kids in the back seat, knowing that we started moving what seems an age ago, but we don’t know how close we are to arriving.

The difference between this journey and our drive to France is that we knew how many miles we had to go and, traffic jams and ferry cancellations aside, had a pretty good idea how long it would take.

No one can tell us how long this journey will take, but the scientists – the navigators – are giving us some clues. Research hasn’t been driving in circles for decades; it really has started to get somewhere. We know far more about the causes and are developing new ways to diagnose dementia earlier. There are some limited treatments available now that weren’t available when BRACE was founded.

And when a respected scientist goes on public record to say that he believes we will have treatments that will slow or even stop Alzheimer’s in ten years or so, I take him seriously.

Those who started this journey had less reason than we have today for confidence that we will reach our destination. Because they took the risk of failure, we now have far more reason to be hopeful, even if precise details of arrival time and exact location remain elusive. Whether or not we are nearly there, we’re on our way.