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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 19.03.09 - Jim Broadbent on dementia research PRESENTER: PETER WHITE |
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Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE Now the Oscar winning actor Jim Broadbent is asking for more money to be put into dementia research. His mother had dementia and he won his academy award for his role as the husband of novelist Iris Murdoch who had Alzheimer's. Well Jim Broadbent has literally just finished addressing the Alzheimer's Research Trust 10th annual conference and he joins me. Thanks for rushing over for us. BROADBENT It's a pleasure. WHITE Explain why - why are you calling for more research and more money? BROADBENT Well the Alzheimer's Research Trust is a charity which is deeply involved in raising money for research into Alzheimer's and it needs more money. I mean compared with cancer research, for instance, which gets £248 million and dementia research gets £32 million, so there's an awful long way to go. WHITE What do you think is the other key areas? I mean obviously you - one has to think in terms of what do we get for this money, where do you think the best chances of real progress are? BROADBENT Well I think it's getting the research done and drawing - drawing everyone into it, in a way that the cancer charities did years ago and it became an imperative of the government to get behind the cancer charities and the same thing has to happen really with Alzheimer's. And what my involvement I suppose is to carry on part of what I was doing in the film Iris which is breaking down the stigma, so people will discuss and communicate their experience of Alzheimer's and it is not something that has to be avoided and shunned and put in the back .... WHITE Perhaps we can personalise it a little bit - what would have helped your mother most and you as a family most? BROADBENT Well as a family we - my mother died in 1995 aged 81 and she really developed severe dementia 18 months before that and we were as a family - my brother and my sister and our families - we were in a state of shock really and there was very - there were very few areas we could turn to for information and comfort or support, there weren't the drop in centres then ... WHITE So it has got better? BROADBENT Oh it has got better, I mean the Alzheimer's Research Trust was only three years old at that time and the other charities were very much in their infancy. I think it got better - I mean we voraciously sought out the books on the subject and television programmes and newspaper articles but it was few and far between and we'd pass it all round so we could share the knowledge. But now I think it is much, much better now and long may it continue to improve. WHITE You've just literally, as I said, been talking to the scientists and the experts - what's their mood about this funding gap? BROADBENT Well the - all the applications for grants that the Alzheimer's Research Trust get they have to turn down two thirds of them and probably twice as many as that are - should be funded. So I think it's - they welcome the building up of the knowledge of the disease so that then it becomes more important for the government to support as well. WHITE But you're saying people are coming up with the ideas and the projects. BROADBENT Yeah, there are a huge number of scientists coming through from universities with areas that they particularly want to research. WHITE The recent National Dementia Strategy for England focused a great deal on care and recognition and you've talked about stigma but is that at the expense of research do you think? BROADBENT I don't know really. I mean one of the other charities I'm involved with is for dementia, which is the - they supply the admirable nurses for the care of - to help the carers of the patients, particularly from my role as John Bayley that was a natural way for me to get involved with the Alzheimer's charities. WHITE There is a research summit already planned for the summer isn't there, do you think it is being addressed? BROADBENT Well hopefully the government will address it more than ever. WHITE And in - I mean in your experience do you have an idea about how much money would be required to make progress in terms of treating and maybe one day even of curing dementia, I mean can we put a figure on it? BROADBENT I haven't a clue about the money. I think it enormously difficult, I mean there isn't at the moment doesn't seem to be any cure, there's some treatments that can sort of make it - life a bit easier for sufferers but there doesn't seem to be any cure but I asked one of the scientists this morning when he thought there might be a cure and he thought probably 200 years we might have a full cure but .... WHITE So in the meantime it's still very much about people like you who've experienced it going round and talking to people and putting it on the front of the agenda. BROADBENT Yes and moving it forward even if slowly. WHITE Jim Broadbent thank you very much for joining us, obviously quite quickly. BROADBENT Thank you very much. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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