Families and Loved Ones affected across the Globe

Like so many people, we have sadly lost loved ones to Alzheimer's. It is such a cruel and devastating disease which steals the very person we know and love before us, no one should have to lose their cherished memories and who they are because of a disease in their brain. We stand with Alzheimer Research for a cure.

I am running the Oxford half-marathon in October for Alzheimer's Research but also in memory of my wife's Grandma, Patricia, who sadly passed away in 2013 after suffering from alzheimers dementia for 7 years.

Patricia was the kind of person you could become friends with almost instantly. She was loving, caring, selfless and lived for her family. My wife, Emily, often shares happy memories of growing up with her Grandma, weekends at her grandparents house, helping Patricia with all the volunteering she did, it always felt like they were so incredibly close and her Grandma meant the world to her. Emily struggles though to share what it was like when Pat (as she preferred to be called) started to get memory problems and how it took five years before she was diagnosed.

Emily always said watching her Grandma go through Alzheimer's was like watching a billboard with lights on, slowly go dark one bulb at a time. By the time Pat passed she had zero recollection of anything beyond her childhood. Emily said it was the hardest day for her when she walked into a room and her grandma wouldn't recognise her - not just because it hurt Emily but because she knew Pat would've hated not knowing who her family was.

The pain of losing Pat came long before she died, and still to this day there is a part of us missing where she once was. Pat is so greatly loved and missed. We truly hope that one day the research into this disease will come out with a cure becusse no person should suffer in this way and no families should have to witness their loved one becoming a shell of themselves. Its beyond heartbreaking.

Alzheimer's is a cruel and devastating disease it takes so much from so many. Please, if you can, give as much as you can to help this incredibly charity to fund research so we can save people from losing those precious memories, and also help families from losing a loved one to this disease. Stand with us, stand for a cure.

Thank you.