I spent a lot of time researching dementia, read papers on the subject, and also found a lot of dementia diaries on the Internet which were a great help in getting an insight into the disease.
I've had five grandparents who have had Alzheimer's. I've been involved in raising money for two decades, so I thought, how could I combine my work with this commitment to helping dementia? One of the myths is that it's an older person's disease. We're seeing early onset dementia among people at 45. It's the disease of everybody.
A lot of people have dementia, which is great, because then they don't recognize me.
Many physical illnesses are associated with depression and anxiety, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, stroke, kidney disease, lung disease, dementia and cancer.
That's the thing with dementia. If you're with somebody who has a serious illness, you can usually talk to them, have a laugh every now and then - the person is still with you. With dementia, there's no conversation; there's no togetherness, no sharing.
What I did when I identified Mike Webster's thing, I showed it to other doctors. We all agreed that this was something new, but we had to give it a name. This was not dementia pugilistica. Maybe we could have called it dementia footballitica!
Both my parents developed dementia in their old age. Everyone I know whose parents had dementia feel that they didn't deal with it very well.
There are so many people getting dementia. It is like an epidemic now. It is a terrible disease because once you get it, your life changes completely.
We have to get behind the scientists and push for a dementia breakthrough. It could be that we fear dementia out of a sense of hopelessness, but there is hope, and it rests in the hands of our scientists.
My experience of people in dementia is that a lot of their personality, a lot of their knowledge, a lot of their experience is still there but there's not a direction connection that they can just reach out and get it and then bring it back.
I've spent a lot of time researching the subject and government deception. So to be involved in Star Trek is perfect for me. I enjoy meeting the fans and discussing my interests with them.
When you have three teenage girls, and you're married 21 years, and have a mother who's blind in one eye and has dementia who lives with you, and your dad has worse dementia, and you're into metal, and your wife is born again, you're never running out of material.
Dementia is quite unlike cancer or heart disease or any of those other conditions where you bargain with God for a cure or even just a bit more time.
I am committed to helping Alzheimer's Society in any way I can. My family and I rely on the help of organisations like Alzheimer's Society to help us understand the disease and guide us in the care of my grandmother. It's been a privilege to meet so many people with dementia.
I had gone through a mother having dementia in the last couple of years of her life. She was in a nursing facility in my little hometown area of northern Illinois, so I got to see a lot of other patients there in various stages of the disease. I had a firsthand exposure to it in a pretty big way.
We know that chronic loneliness has consequences. It certainly depresses our mood. And in terms of our health, people who struggle with loneliness also have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety. Loneliness is also associated with a shorter lifespan.
Our goal is to continue to build the pipeline to fight all aspects of disease for all forms of dementia.