New research and a very long swim

The two most recent news stories posted on our website show something of the variety of our work, what we (and others) do to raise and money and what we spend it on.

On the one hand, there is the announcement of a £178,000 grant to Dr Vasanta Subramanian at the University of Bath. This is actually the fourth grant we have awarded to Bath this year, supporting varied and vital research.

Vasanta’s research uses the latest knowledge in stem cell research to replicate brain cells and track the effect on them of fronto-temporal dementia. These are adult stem cells, developed from skin samples.

The project also represents an extension of BRACE-funded research into a different form of dementia. Other research already funded by the charity focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia.

This follows the previous day’s news story about Bryony Wood. Her great grandmother has dementia, so the cause is very personal to Bryony and her family. She is a pupil at Bradley Stoke Community School and decided to help the school’s fundraising for BRACE by swimming three miles.

That’s a very long swim, especially for those of us who feel a sense of achievement if we make it to the other end of the pool. Bryony managed no fewer than 216 lengths, despite being disrupted by some other swimmers.

I applaud Bryony for her commitment and sheer endeavour. She can be sure her part in the fight against dementia will count, because it’s the swimming, the running, the cake-making, tin-shaking and all the other fundraising that makes the work of people like Vasanta possible.

What's in a name?

People often ask me what BRACE stands for. The answer always involves a brief history lesson and a realisation of just how far we have come in the last quarter of a century.

When the charity was founded 25 years ago, the founders decided to call it Bristol Research into Alzheimer’s and Care of the Elderly. This would have been a bit of a mouthful, so they wisely decided that it would be simpler to say “BRACE” for short.

A lot of charities and other organisations have acronyms and they have their uses. They also have their drawbacks, and growing out of them is one such example.

That’s a positive, of course. In the time we’ve been operating, we have come a long way and can no longer be defined just by our roots.

Bristol – yes, that’s where it all started, but we are now a regional charity. Our HQ is in South Gloucestershire and we are working with supporters around the West Country, from Devon to Wiltshire. We are also gathering supporters from elsewhere in the UK, from Liverpool to Brighton. We even had a sponsored runner in Australia this year, albeit one who hails originally from this region.

After all, the cause we are part of is global.

Research – no argument here. We only fund research. “Alzheimer’s”, however, has to be treated as synonymous with dementia, which is becoming the norm nowadays. Other dementia charities also tend to say “Alzheimer’s” when they actually deal with other forms of dementia as well. We currently support research into Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia and fronto-temporal dementia as well as Alzheimer’s disease.

The “Care of the Elderly” bit is mystifying unless you know the history. BRACE was originally formed to fund research in the Department of the Care of the Elderly at Bristol University. That department disappeared several years ago, but Bristol University has a formidable dementia research programme and is still the single biggest recipient of BRACE support.

However, the last five years have seen a significant expansion of research into the Universities of Bath, Cardiff and the West of England (UWE). The charity’s policy is to fund research only in the West Country and Cardiff, which is what gives BRACE its distinctive regional identity and has enabled it to help build up a strong research network in this area.

So there you have it, the full story behind our evolving name. BRACE, the dementia research charity – simple. Now go and tell your friends all about us!

Next year the past

Like many charities, we sell a range of goods to help raise funds. Perhaps the most appropriate for a dementia charity is our “More Memories of Bristol” calendar 2013.

The title reflects the fact that we had a Memories of Bristol calendar in 2011, using thirteen previously unpublished photos of Bristol from about 1950 onwards. They were all the work of local photographer Geoff Packer, whose family kindly made them available to BRACE to help raise funds. We are very grateful to the Packer family for giving us the opportunity to use a further thirteen photos from Geoff’s collection for a 2013 calendar.

I think this calendar has a better selection of photos than the 2011 version. Most of the pictures date from the 1950s, but it’s a bit of a shock for me to realise that I’m old enough to identify with at least one picture of Bristol’s past. It is dated 1973, and I remember running across that zebra crossing after school to catch the number 87 or 88 at that bus stop. Some of the photos include strange details, such as cars parked in places where they would now cause a major incident, or buildings now hidden behind later construction which were then in plain view.

It’s a little gem for anyone who has any memories of the city from the 1950s or the early 1970s.

Redcliff Hill 1956 (October's photo)

The reason it seems appropriate is that dementia is very much about memory. Not just about memory, of course, but the loss of it is perhaps the cruellest part of the disease. The world we see in the photos is the world that older Bristolians with dementia once knew, remembered long and then started to lose piece by piece. In cases where the patient is struggling to make new memories rather than remember the distant past, this might be the city they still see in their mind’s eye. Whatever the reality in any individual case, the symbolism is poignant.

We couldn’t risk having unsold stock at the end of 2012, because few things date faster than a calendar after 31^st December. We therefore only printed 600. They are selling rapidly, but there are still some left. If you are interested, more information is available on our website shop page.