The Dementia Research Collaborative (DRC) at UEA is a group of researchers, educators, clinicians and lay people who are interested in dementia research.
The aims of the group are:
i) to disseminate cutting-edge dementia research findings across UEA, health services and the public, and
ii) to foster research collaborations across UEA, health services and the public.
We run an ongoing series of free bi-monthly dementia open forums at UEA (currently online) which create an exchange of knowledge between researchers, clinicians, the general public, people with dementia and their carers. Anyone with an interest in dementia research is welcome.
Researchers from UEA, and guests, will present their latest innovative research studies and findings, with a different dementia researcher leading each event. There's an opportunity to ask questions of the researcher and to find out how to take part in any upcoming studies at UEA.
You can watch previous Open Forums on our YouTube channel, the UEA Dementia Open Forum.
Our next Dementia Open Forum is on Thursday 25 April 2024 at 2pm on Zoom
Date: Thursday 25 April 2024
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Location: Zoom
Speaker: Dr Alpar Lazar, Associate Professor in Dementia and Complexity in Later Life (School of Health Sciences, UEA)
Topic: 'Sleep impairment in ageing and dementia: The chicken or the egg problem'
Sleep, as an ancient demeanour taking up one-third of our life, is a complex physiological process evolved to optimize learning and memory while being central to both our mental and physical health. Nonetheless, sleep gradually deteriorates with age, becoming more fragmented and less restorative. And indeed, approximately half of older people report sleep disturbances, and this number is even higher in various health conditions such as dementia. While sleep abnormalities can be present long time before the clinical onset of dementia disorders it remains to be clarified how does ageing affect sleep and could age-dependent sleep quality deterioration drive cognitive decline and dementia. If yes, what are the putative mechanisms and could sleep quality improvement modulate the disease process in dementia? Alternatively, could sleep problems merely reflect early alterations in the brain that also underpin neurogenerative disorders? The talk will attempt to review the answers to these questions.
Please email dementia.research@uea.ac.uk for a link to attend this event.