Putting knowledge to work

Improving care for patients with dementia, a devastating illness that she felt was neglected by medical research, became a driving passion for Louise. “Although there has been a lot more research in the last couple of decades, I’m not sure it’s had an impact on practice,” she says. “We have some drugs now that are not curative but do improve quality of life and slow down the progression of dementia, but in terms of specialist services there are considerable and unacceptable geographical inequalities around the country.”

Louise describes her progress in academia as being hampered at first by lack of funding. "It was about winning a small grant and learning on the job. One small grant led to a large grant which led to more prestigious grants. A key turning point in terms of professional development was winning a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) professorship in 2012."

Since then, larger and more prestigious grants have followed, most notably from the Alzheimer's Society, which awarded three Centres of Excellence nationally, one being Newcastle. The record £1,680,224 grant, which will be awarded over five years, will enable researchers to focus on priority areas within dementia care research.

Lousie explains: "The Alzheimer's Society wanted to identify centres that are already well established for doing great work in dementia care and try to develop their capacity not just to improve current care, but also to develop the next generation of dementia researchers who will continue to work in an area that's not as popular or sexy as some areas of medicine."