Losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s

Scott emotionally spoke of how his vibrant wife with a wonderful outlook on life had always said to him, “Darling, I am going to get old and go before you, so you better be prepared”. With an age gap of 26 years, Scott understood those words but he openly says that what he wasn’t prepared for, was Alzheimer’s. He talked of how “sharp” Barbara was and how she prided herself on being able to learn her lines quickly – she was the one her friends would call if they were struggling to remember actors they had worked with in the West End in years gone by.

“One day, Barbara came home from the set of Eastenders and said that she couldn’t find the lines, which although she knew could happen something felt different and strange. Very slowly, her personality began to change. Always fearless and joyful, Barbara became withdrawn – it was like a veil coming down.”
Scott Mitchell, Ambassador Alzheimer’s Research UK

Since Dame Barbara’s passing with Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, Scott has driven huge change through his advocacy, running three London Marathons for the charity, and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds. He’s also lobbied the government to boost dementia research funding leading to the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission – a task force designed to speed up dementia research and pledged to double dementia research funding to £160million this year.

Dementia treatment breakthrough

Following Scott’s moving account of living with a loved one with Alzheimer’s, Professor Selina Wray, molecular neuroscience professor provided a comprehensive overview on the neuroscience of dementia – where we are in terms of our understanding of the disease and how potential treatments are progressing.

Professor Wray discussed the significant public health challenge dementia poses, with nearly a million people in the UK affected. Although fewer than 1 per cent of dementia cases are genetic, research into autosomal Alzheimer’s has opened the door to understanding the order of events that result in dementia – and by doing so offers an opportunity to stop the disease from progressing.

She shared encouraging developments in early diagnosis and disease-modifying treatments, emphasizing the importance of early intervention. Her work with stem cells and patient-specific disease modelling offers hope for personalised treatments in the future.

“One of the big breakthroughs that we’ve had in our understanding of the disease is there is a huge period of pre-symptomatic change in the brain that’s happening 30 years before the first symptoms appear. We now know that clinical trials failed previously because we were testing drugs in people already with Alzheimer’s. It was the equivalent of testing chemotherapy on people with cancer who are already in a hospice. It was far too late.”
Selina Wray, Professor of Molecular Neuroscience

Reducing risk through lifestyle choices

After qualifying at medical school, our third panellist, Dr Sabine Donnai, became disheartened. During eight years of study, she learned that a symptom matched a diagnosis, which matched a treatment but she felt that there must be more to what health actually means. On a journey across several continents studying different types of medicine she became inspired by the Ming dynasty where the emperor paid a physician to keep him healthy.

Dr Donnai’s passion is to prevent people from getting ill with diseases such as Alzheimer’s in the first place. She says we are all born with a wall of switches. Depending on your lifestyle choices you can choose to switch them on or keep them turned off. It is why she advocates checking your DNA because only 10 per cent of your health risk is down to your genes – the rest is a lifestyle choice. So, what does Dr Donnai advise we do at the very least? Avoid sugar, toxins and white foods (“everything but cauliflower”) and eat organic, not because of the taste but because of the nutrients that go into your body. Keep your muscles strong by weight training and floss, not only to keep your dentist happy but to reduce inflammation, which is in itself a risk factor.

“People that retire mustn’t turn off. Keep using your brain. Not by doing crossword puzzles. That is using information you already know. Learn something new, table tennis, juggling or just anything different.”
Dr Sabine Donnai, Founder & CEO of Viavi

How to get a good night’s sleep

We all need to sleep. It is unavoidable. What varies drastically is how good the quality of our sleep is and how many hours we get. And the truth is that more than half of people living in the UK lose sleep at one time or another due to stress and anxiety.

Kathryn Pinkham, founder, of The Insomnia Clinic, the UK’s largest foundation and our final guest speaker used her time to give the audience some tips on improving their sleeping habits. The more time we spend in bed thinking and ruminating, the more we connect our beds to these negative feelings, she says. We teach ourselves to feel stressed and anxious in bed by continuing to reinforce the habit. We then spend more and more time awake in bed which disrupts our body clock and leads to further poor sleep.

So, how can we improve our sleep? The first tip from Kathryn is to spend less time in bed by cutting down your wind-down routine. Just go to bed later. If you wake up in the middle of the night, get out of bed and do something different such as reading until you feel sleepy. We all tend to lead busy lives – too busy to find the time to worry during the day but our minds find that time at 3am. Take 10 minutes out of your day to note down what’s on your mind, so it doesn’t crop up when you least want it to.

“If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t look at the clock. You don’t need to know the time. It does two things. First, it cements that pattern to keep waking up at the same time. Second, it triggers a negative chain of thoughts.”
Kathryn Pinkham, founder, The Insomnia Clinic

Our National Charity Partner

Weatherbys is proud to support Alzheimer’s Research UK as our national charity partner for 2024/25. Dementia affects almost one million people in the UK alone. Tragically, not one of them will survive. Alzheimer’s Research UK exists to change that and is striving for a cure by revolutionising the way dementia is treated, diagnosed, and prevented. With breakthrough treatments finally emerging, there’s never been a more exciting time to support the charity’s search for a cure.

By taking action over the coming weeks, you can help make the next government – whoever it is – to take dementia seriously. Vote For A Cure. General Election 2024: Vote For A Cure – General Election 2024: Vote For A Cure – Alzheimer’s Research UK.

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As a result, we are proud to announce partnerships with four charities spanning the UK in 2024/25, including national and local charities. The charities, chosen by our staff, include three that are close to their offices. The charities are Alzheimer’s Research UK, Rock Trust, City Harvest and The Daylight Centre.

Roger Weatherby, Chairman at Weatherbys Banking Group, said: “I am delighted that we have formed new partnerships with four charities, enabling our company and people to give more to charity in terms of time, energy and money. It is particularly fitting that our new partners have been chosen by our people so they can directly help small charities near their office locations. We very much look forward to sharing our skills and enthusiasm, working with our partners in the months ahead.”

Quentin Marshall, Chief Executive at Weatherbys Banking Group, said: “We have been active in donating to organisations through our Charitable Foundation for many years and we are proud to be partnering with four new charities for 2024/25. Many of our employees shared their personal experiences coping with friends and family affected by dementia. We all have the potential to make a significant impact and we look forward to supporting out partners in the coming months.”

Alzheimer’s Research UK

This is the first time we have teamed up with a dementia charity, with the decision being made after many of our staff shared personal experiences. Dementia affects almost one million people in the UK alone. Tragically, not one of them will survive. Alzheimer’s Research UK exists to change that. The charity is striving for a cure by revolutionising the way dementia is treated, diagnosed and prevented. With recent breakthroughs in the search for new treatments, there’s never been a more exciting time to join forces with the charity.

Lucy Squance, Director of Supporter Led Fundraising at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:

“Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer, with one in ten people dying from the condition. We cannot let this go on and we won’t. With the support from people and organisations like Weatherbys, we’re closer than ever to ending the heartbreak caused by dementia. Alzheimer’s Research UK is thrilled to begin our two-year partnership and we look forward to seeing what we can achieve together. Thank you, Weatherbys, for standing with us in our search for a cure.”

Rock Trust, Scotland

Rock Trust has been Scotland’s youth homelessness charity for more than 30 years. The trust has supported young people aged 16–25 to avoid and move on from homelessness, which disproportionately impacts Scotland’s young people. The charity works with schools and the community to help young people early, providing safe, youth-specific housing options and support to move forward with their lives. Last year, with the help of its supporters and partners, it reached over 900 young people.

City Harvest, London

Some 13.3 million meals are wasted every month in Greater London. Yet at the same time, more than 10 million meals are being skipped each month by people who cannot afford enough to eat. To counter this, City Harvest delivers nutritious surplus from partners such as Nando’s and Charlie Bigham’s, as well as farms, wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers to hundreds of charities across Greater London, and beyond, that feed people who are experiencing food poverty. Since 2014, City Harvest has delivered over 50 million meals to people in need.

The Daylight Centre, Wellingborough

Based in our hometown, the Daylight Centre assists disadvantaged and vulnerable adults, particularly those who are sleeping rough or are in vulnerable housing, those in poverty and those who are socially isolated. The centre operates a community hub in the centre of the town offering a range of services to those in need, including access to hot showers, clothing, bedding, laundry facilities and food for anyone who is street homeless or lacking in facilities. It also provides a food bank to support people in their time of greatest need or crisis.

The Creating The Future Foundation

The Foundation was established in 2007 and, over the years, it has helped many initiatives including:

• rehabilitation and mental health support to those in the racing industry
• therapy for children and young people with life-limiting illnesses or disabilities
• support for people affected by all forms of autism
• the planting of trees in UK forests
• delivering clean water, hygiene and improved sanitation to developing countries
• literacy and business training for communities in the developing world.

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It is an opinion Weatherbys has long shared. As a business we have become carbon neutral and have committed to being net zero by 2027. We also launched our Creating The Future (CTF) event in 2018 to stimulate discussion and debate about important issues that will affect our clients and future generations of their families.

Creating The Future

At our 2019 CTF event, we were privileged to have as a guest speaker, James Thornton – someone we admire for his environmental work and who was described by The New Statesman as one of the 10 people who could change the world.

James admits his life is dedicated to defending the Earth. He says: “Nature in its richness has a right to thrive and endure. It has over three billion years of wisdom to share. Our civilisation will live well only if we learn to harmonise with the natural world and fulfil our ambitions within nature’s complex, delicate, resilient rules. We must protect nature as we protect our own eyes, as the president of China recently put it.”

His work reaches far and wide through the environmental charity he founded, Client Earth. The charity works with people, campaigners, governments and industry to tackle environmental challenges across the globe – whether it be supporting legal action against the Ghanaian government’s decision to allow the extraction of bauxite or protecting marine animals in the gulf of Venice whilst challenging key aspects of the Italian government’s policy on oil and gas exploration.

Why is China appointing judges to combat climate change?

But James offers us all another reason to hope for a sustainable future. At the start of a recent TedTalk, James posed the question: “Imagine a world in which China was an environmental leader. That would be a more hopeful world, wouldn’t it?

The question was a leading one but it perhaps shines new light on any preconceived perceptions of China’s attitude towards a more sustainable future.

Client Earth has an office in Beijing where it is a trusted partner of the Ministry of the Environment and helped bring in a law that allows Chinese environmental groups to sue polluting companies – including those owned by the state. This led to the charity training more than 1,500 Supreme Court Environmental Judges and more than 1,200 environmental prosecutors. In 2020, prosecutors brought 80,000 environmental cases, most against government departments. And in September 2021, President Xi Jinping announced that it would not fund or build any more coal-fired power stations outside China.

Some 10 and a half minutes in, James concludes his talk with his answer: “Does more need to be done in China? Certainly. A lot more and faster ­– just like in every other country. But what I’ve found heartening are all of these changes to the system that they’ve been making in recent years. We work [Client Earth] in many countries around the world but I have never seen the intense focus on systemic change, moving a country towards environmental improvements, as I’ve seen in China. I’d like to think that I’ve given you reasons for hope. China has certainly given me hope.”

About Client Earth

ClientEarth is a non-profit organisation that uses the law to create systemic change that protects the Earth for – and with – its inhabitants. We are tackling climate change, protecting nature and stopping pollution, with partners and citizens around the globe. We hold industry and governments to account, and defend everyone’s right to a healthy world. From our offices in Europe, Asia and the USA we shape, implement and enforce the law, to build a future for our planet in which people and nature can thrive together.

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One particular project our Charitable Foundation has helped is now bringing clean water to a village in Malawi called Sapitwa, transforming the lives of 265 adults and children by giving them access to life’s basic needs. Beatrice, a student at the local primary school, no longer has to walk half a mile to find the closest water point. “We would come back tired and fail to concentrate in class. But now our lives have been made easy.”

Charity: water has played an integral part of our Creating The Future initiative. Subsequently our clients supported two community projects in Rwanda helping to fund piped tap systems for schools.

To find out more about Charity: water and its projects, visit www.charitywater.org/uk/our-work

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