Wider and deeper - After the Debate

The BRACE Dementia Debate took place at UWE last Thursday and seems to have been judged a great success by everyone who attended. I’d just like to say a bit more now about the purpose of the evening, and where we hope it will lead.

The format was familiar to anyone who listens to Any Questions? or watches Question Time, both flagship BBC programmes and both chaired by one of the Dimbleby brothers. We were honoured to have Jonathan Dimbleby with us as chairman for our debate, and he ran things masterfully. As I said to him afterwards, I was finally able to relax at 7pm, after months of planning, when I knew everything was safely in his hands.

We also had a very strong panel, representing as wide a range as possible of the challenges which dementia poses. The audience, too, contained scientists, doctors, social services managers and many others with specialist knowledge, including people who have had the painful experience of dementia in the family. The combination of perspectives in the room led to some interesting redirections of the debate, such as the need for better integration of health and social services, or some unexpected replies to the request that each one of the panellists suggest one thing we can do to fight dementia.

That’s the reason behind the word “wider” in my title. I thought of going with “wider still and wider” but, quite apart from the unfortunate imperialist connotations, it falls short of our ambitions.

We wanted to get beyond the usual constraints of conversations about dementia, which tend to follow a particular route, e.g. from the cruelty of the disease to whether we are getting closer to effective treatments. Bringing together such a range of expertise, guided by a top quality chairman, made us hopeful that we could really start to delve into various aspects of the subject in a very public forum. The feedback suggests it worked.

But don’t take my word for it. You can watch and listen for yourself here - http://embed.bambuser.com/channel/Brace. Start about 8 minutes in, or you might worry that your PC has lost the means to emit sound!

We’d love to have your comments, too. You could always use this blog as a place to leave them.

Finally, this is not the end of the process. We started a year ago by taking what I nicknamed “the BRACE road show” to Frome and Salisbury, where we engaged members of the public in discussion with scientists and others. Earlier this year, we held an evening of short films about dementia at the University of Bristol, followed by a remarkably successful discussion about the different approaches science and art can take to dementia. Thursday’s debate was the most ambitious of these occasions to date, and we plan to build on this initiative.

By pooling our ideas and experiences, we might just be able to change the ways in which we look at dementia and the ways in which we respond to it.