23 Jun 21. Hill climbing for dementia research

Fundraiser & Edinburgh Medical School volunteer Laila Kjellström, 81, climbed Ben Vrackie in aid of dementia research. The University of Edinburgh Fundraise Your Way team spoke with Laila to find out more about her 81st birthday fundraising challenge.

Vascular dementia affects an estimated 150,000 people in the UK, but we still don’t know much about how to prevent it or treat it. We talked to fundraiser & Edinburgh Medical School volunteer Laila Kjellström, 81, about why she wanted to support dementia research & spoke to the University of Edinburgh researchers to find out more about what they’re doing to better understand this debilitating condition.

Retired psychotherapist & former University of Edinburgh tutor Laila Kjellström had grand plans to host a party for her 80^th party last year. But then Covid-19 happened, & any thoughts of large gatherings had to be abandoned. Her regular trips to Peebles or Pitlochry for walks were also curtailed & she soon tired of walking multiple loops around the Meadows.

Like many of us experiencing lockdown restrictions, boredom crept in, but then she received some difficult news. Her partner was diagnosed with vascular dementia & he was one of an increasing number of Laila’s circle of friends to develop symptoms of the condition. Laila felt compelled to do something.

So this year she didn’t let her 81^st birthday go by unmarked. But instead of a party, she chose to do something for others, deciding to climb Ben Vrackie, the 787m ‘Speckled Mountain’ that towers over the Scottish town of Pitlochry, to raise money for dementia research at the University of Edinburgh. Her ascent was slow & steady & the last stretch was steep & tough, but she made it, motivated by all the people who were supporting her.

“I wanted to do something positive. I’d been reading about vascular dementia & that it is unknown how it’s going to affect people: some people degenerate very quickly & others are in a stable mental condition for a while,” she says.

“It would be really helpful if it is discovered what people can do to prevent developing vascular dementia. Maybe there are simple things like exercise & diet, as well as being socially active, for example volunteering or learning a language? Once people are diagnosed, what can they do to make life as ok as they can? What can family & friends do to support, because a dementia diagnosis affects the family as well?”

These are just some of the questions that University of Edinburgh researchers hope to find answers to. Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia in the UK, affecting an estimated 150,000 people & their families & friends. It usually starts when the small vessels within the brain become damaged & reduce blood flow to the brain. Currently, there is no definite prevention or cure.

Professor Joanna Wardlaw, Chair of Applied Neuroimaging at the University of Edinburgh, researches small vessel disease, stroke & ageing. She says: “From a research side, it is important to learn more about vascular dementia to find new treatments & a cure. Compared to other dementias, such as Alzheimer’s disease, people seem to be less aware of the symptoms that are due to vascular dementia. If more people & doctors learn about vascular dementia, this will help diagnosis, prevention of worsening, & help people who are living with vascular dementia to receive better support.”

Professor Wardlaw’s team in the University’s Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences focuses on cerebral small vessel disease, a common disorder of the small blood vessels in the brain that causes cognitive problems, 25% of all strokes, & is the most common cause of vascular dementia & mixed dementia with Alzheimer’s disease.

“We use Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, similar to the types of brain scans that are commonly used in hospital clinics, to examine how small vessel disease affects the brain & we look for changes that could act as markers for vascular dementia. We also perform thinking & memory tests to detect cognitive problems that are related to small vessel disease & vascular dementia. This tells us about how blood vessel diseases damage the brain & helps us to develop new treatments,” explains Professor Wardlaw.

Proceeds from Laila’s fundraising climb will support PhD research carried out by Angela Jochems, who works in Professor Wardlaw’s team. Angela, who has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology & a Master’s degree in Neuropsychology, moved to the UK from the Netherlands recently, starting her PhD in March 2020.

Angela is using brain scans to look at white matter lesions, which show up on the scans as abnormalities, & understand more about how these lesions might change in people who have small vessel disease or vascular dementia.

“We know that these lesions are caused by small diseased blood vessels & we know that these damage white matter in the brain, & that white matter is very important for connecting all different brain regions, ensuring the efficient information processing expected in normal cognition,” she says.

“What I want to do is use brain scans to look at the connections, or the wiring of the white matter, to see how the quality of the blood vessels & these damaged areas affect the quality of the white matter. I want to find out why sometimes, the white matter lesions can change, grow or shrink, & how that can affect cognition & lead to dementia.”

Angela, who has had experience of working directly with dementia patients on clinical placement in Amsterdam & working briefly as a psychologist in nursing homes in the Netherlands, is motivated to learn more about a condition that affects so many people, yet is still misunderstood.

 “When I was working in nursing homes in the Netherlands, I remember someone who had clear symptoms of vascular dementia to me, but he didn’t really have memory problems. With Alzheimer’s disease that’s usually one of the first things that people notice, but it’s not the case with vascular dementia because it depends where the damage is. His family didn’t understand why he was in a care home refusing to believe he has dementia because ‘he still remembers everything’, which caused great distress for his wife, when the reality was he couldn’t live at home any more.

“People don’t feel understood. & I think the more knowledge we have to share with people who have small vessel disease or vascular dementia - to be able to explain why they have the symptoms they have, the more we can help them feel understood & supported,” she says.

Angela’s PhD research, & the broader team’s research into small blood vessels, can also play a role in better understanding how to prevent symptoms of vascular dementia emerging or worsening.

“We hope to use the knowledge of how small vessel disease can affect the brain & lead to dementia, to develop more effective treatments. This way it might be possible to slow down the disease & prevent future damage & dementia,” explains Professor Wardlaw.

“A greater understanding will help doctors to decide on the best care for their patients in future. We have already used some of this knowledge to run a trial of tablets that we think help the blood vessels – the MRI scans showed some signs that the tablets were helping, so we went on to do a larger trial, which should be finished later this year & give its results next year.”

This news might provide some comfort to Laila, whose 81^st birthday hill climb has raised more than £1,300 for the research to date. For Laila, it’s been difficult to watch people she cares about change as a result of dementia, & for many more patients & their carers, more support, understanding & the possibility of treatment, can’t come soon enough.

This news item is copied from the UoE Fundraise Your Way article, please view this here.

Please find Laila's Just Giving page, here.