On the fourteenth of August 2009 my father, Martin Teer, passed away at just short of 60 years old. His death ended his years of suffering from the form of dementia known as Alzheimer’s disease. My father was an educated man, spending more than thirty years of his life as a high school teacher of Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Business Studies. For most of this time he held the position of Deputy Head Master at Settle High School and Community College. In hindsight we can see that it was because of the symptoms of my father’s dementia that he had to take early retirement. I think the early ending of my father’s career was by far his worst experience. After his retirement his condition swiftly worsened, he lost the ability to make decisions and perform simple tasks. Even reading an analogue clock became an impossible task for a former mathematics teacher. It was a matter of about seven years after my father’s retirement, having forgotten family members and withdrawn into a mere shell of his former self, my father passed away.

Had there been more of an understanding and more knowledge of the condition then I know we, and society as a whole, would have been able to help my father, his family and friends through this time. It is because of this, and understanding Martin’s love of learning, that we agreed it would be right for the learning to continue. With this in mind we arranged for his brain, that which had been his greatest tool, to be left to the Medical Research Department of Leeds University. This was done with the specific understanding that it would be used for the research and development into the condition that had stolen so much, both from Martin himself, his loved ones and the many students that would have benefitted from his teachings.

The people at Leeds University are among those in the forefront of research into dementia. Dementia is a condition which not only affects the family, friends and the one who is directly experiencing the condition, but also effects society as a whole. According to statistics from www.dementia2010.org, dementia costs the UK economy £23,000,000,000,000.00 every year. This is a massive amount of expense especially when you think that the cost on the UK economy from Cancer is in the region of £12,000,000,000,000.00 per year. This is the cost to the UK economy at the current levels of 820,000 people living in the UK with the condition. This number is set to double over the next 20 years, and even if the cost per person was to stay the same without the cost of man-hours, materials and such increasing then the cost to the UK economy will increase to £46,000,000,000,000.00. Using these figures we know that Cancer costs the UK economy almost half as much as Dementia, but money spent on the two conditions doesn’t reflect this fact. Each year the amount spent on research in to the treatment of cancer reaches £590,000,000.00 where as research into the treatment, and possible prevention, of dementia gets a mere eight and a half percent of this amount.

When my father started to suffer the condition, something I lost out on was our times that we used to spend on the hills. My father truly appreciated the outdoors; he brought my sister, my brother and me up with the same appreciation. Not only us, but through his help that he gave to children at school and at the local scout troop he encouraged more and more to appreciate the outdoors. Because of my father’s encouragement I began to travel. I trekked across the world, and I am still doing so. I know my father would have loved to opportunities that are available these days for people to travel and appreciate the wider world. I want this mutual appreciation between my father and me to benefit as many people as possible. I want to do a trek that my father frequently spoke of, but never had the opportunity to do. But rather than just doing it and appreciating the scenery, I would like this to help with funding the research that is going on at Leeds University. If this research could help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years, we could halve the number of people who die with the condition.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you soon...

Francis