Broadbent: More dementia research needed

An Oscar-award winning actor recently appeared on BBC to call for more action in the study of dementia, a disease that affects more than 700,000 Britons, including his own mother.


Jim Broadbent, who starred in Bridget Jone's Diary, talked candidly about the disease's impact on his family including one late night encounter where his mother came up to him in night clothes with a brick and asked "When are

we leaving?"


The actor told the news provider that the disease affected his family, who found that some symptoms came out of the blue.


The stress of Alzheimer's care may lead to people trying to separate the idea of the disease from their afflicted love one, including Broadbent who called it a "bizarre and strange thing that came into our lives."


The British government dedicates eight times more funds on cancer research than it does on dementia studies, even though the dementia population is expected to double by 2037, the BBC says.


Roughly two-thirds of care home residents suffer from dementia, according to statistics released by the Alzheimer's Society.



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