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Sunday, 7 February 2016 - Reported by Marcus
Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston fronts the latest campaign from Alzheimer’s Research UK #sharetheorange.

The project features stop motion animation from award winning studio Aardman, to demonstrate how the diseases that cause dementia, most commonly Alzheimer’s, physically attack the brain. Through damage caused by the disease, the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s can weigh around 140 grams less than a healthy brain – about the weight of an orange.

Eccleston, whose father Ronnie died with vascular dementia following a 14-year battle with the disease, said
We have to think differently about dementia. We have to stop believing dementia is an inevitability; something that simply happens to us all as we grow older. If we don’t, we’re never going to truly fight it.

Dementia is caused by diseases and diseases can be beaten. We’ve tamed diseases like cancer and heart disease and a diagnosis of either is no longer a certain death sentence. People with dementia deserve this same hope. This film aims to show that dementia is caused by physical processes that scientists can put a stop to.

While scientists fight dementia in the lab, by sharing the film anyone can fight the misunderstanding and fatalism that surrounds dementia in our society.




FILTER: - Christopher Eccleston