November 2024
Right now, there isn’t a cure for people with dementia. But hope is on the horizon with lecanemab and donanemab – the first Alzheimer’s treatments licensed in Britain that can slow down the disease, rather than just treating its symptoms.
These new drugs are just the beginning. The research community is now focussing on developing a broad range of life-changing new treatments that will slow, stop and reverse all forms of dementia.
However, unless we can identify and diagnose dementia earlier, people won’t be able to benefit from new treatments.
In the UK, efforts are underway to develop a ‘brain health service model’, with a suggested blueprint for adapting existing memory services to better address conditions like cognitive decline and diseases that can lead to dementia, such as Alzheimer’s.
While proposed models and successful brain health clinics exist, there is no UK-wide agreement on who these services are more appropriate for, or what assessments they should include.
To tackle this, Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society have commissioned research to explore the current challenges in establishing brain health clinics. This work focuses on identifying the essential services and priorities for these clinics and their broader network, known as the Brain Health Coalition UK.
Design, delivery, and growth of brain health clinics across the UK: building consensus
Our recommendations
Based on our research, we recommend that brain health clinics should focus on four key areas:
- Early diagnosis: Provide early and accurate diagnosis, of the disease(s) that cause dementia;
- Assess and reduce risk: Provide patients with comprehensive risk assessments and personalised risk reduction plans;
- Patient education: Provide patients with educational resources on risk reduction and self-care;
- Access to Research: Provide patients with opportunities to enrol in all types of clinical research.
Case study: The Oxford Brain Health Clinic
This pilot project evaluated the feasibility of the brain health clinic model, with a view to future scaling across the NHS. The Oxford Brain Health Clinic takes patients referred to one local memory clinic as part of the usual patient pathway. Patients can opt in to attend the brain health clinic and have access to higher quality memory assessments and imaging, as well as the opportunity to participate in research studies and trials. The results of the pilot have been hugely successful, with 93.5% of patients consenting for their data to be used in research, and consultant memory clinic appointment times reduced from 75 to 45 minutes, as well as more clinicians feeling more confident in the accuracy of their diagnosis. One of the clinic’s ambitions for their next phase is to explore measuring brain health and help recognise risk factors for dementia earlier.