On Tuesday, I went with other members of the South Yorkshire Dementia Research Advisory Group to the Dementia Futures conference at Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience.

The conference, in it’s third year, is a challenge to PhD students at Sheffield University to present their Dementia research in a non-academic way, so that professionals and people living with Dementia can understand their presentations.

It was supported by the Alzheimer’s Society and the Medicine, Dentistry & Health Research Staff Association (MDHRSA).

David Reid and Julie Simpson opened proceedings and kept things going throughout the day, plenty of humour in amongst the housekeeping and keeping things running smoothly during the day.

Sandra Baker, an Alzheimer’s Society Research Network Volunteer also spoke about her role with the society’s research efforts.

There were 13 students involved, 7 gave spoken/visual presentations and the other 6 produced posters about their work.

Some of the presentations and the posters were easier for me to understand than others but that is the way with Dementia reader,  we all have different experiences/challenges and we all didn’t have the same opinions of the presentations.

If you are one of the PhD students reader, take heart, they were all important examples of research and it will be interesting to see their conclusions at the advisory group.

As members of the research advisory group, we were asked to judge both types of presentations and we chose 1 poster and we had a tie for the best vocal/visual presentation.

The day was also an opportunity for me to introduce the new Dementia UK representative for Admiral Nurses to various people from the University, Alzheimer’s Society and others

Charlotte Harris, is developing Dementia UK services across our region and is interested in bringing Admiral Nurses to Sheffield, which would form one part of post-diagnosis support in Sheffield for people diagnosed with Dementia and their carer/family.

All in all it’s was an enjoyable an informative day and the air-conditioning was a blessing on a hot day.