New Year and resolution

Another New Year and millions of people are making resolutions. Of course, the start of a new year is simply a date change, a reminder that the earth has completed another orbit of the sun. In our case, it also happens to be the end of our accounting period, so we draw a line under our figures, compare them with previous solar orbits and ask ourselves whether we are improving.

As 2012 was in many ways a very successful year, it would be tempting to rest on our laurels (not that resting on laurels sounds especially comfortable). Given the scale of the task ahead of us, though, what a mistake that would be.

Dementia is a huge and growing problem – I can use the phrase “global crisis” without being alarmist. Despite the very welcome extra funds scraped from a diminished public purse by HM Government, research in the UK and abroad depends heavily on charities. To be blunt, there aren’t many charities – in the UK, at least – which exist for this purpose. We’re not the biggest by any means, but we play a vital role that bigger research charities and, for that matter, governments cannot.

All of which is not reiterated to make you glum, but to make a point about the sort of resolution we need at the start of another year. Not a short term promise to cut calories or behave better but the “condition or quality of being resolute; firmness or determination”. When 2014 arrives, we shall look back at 2013 and say we need to do more again… and again and again.

Beating dementia isn’t going to be a quick overnight victory as someone somewhere rushes into the street from the bath (or, more probably, lab) screaming “eureka”. Neither is it going to be done on the cheap or entirely because of one charity grant or one government announcement. Being resolved to carry on the fight, year on year, is what matters. Those who come after us will thank us, just as we thank those who started and kept going when there was little obvious cause for hope, and who advanced medical knowledge to where we are today.

So, BRACE’s New Year resolution? Yes, we have lots of it!