When photographer Mark Edwards’ mother June was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he decided to chart the effects of the illness to help him cope with his grief. What emerged was a series of compelling portraits that revealed the toll the condition took on a once vibrant and outgoing woman.
June Edwards, 74, now lives in a care home in Essex. She is unaware her husband of 53 years died last April as her son fears she wouldn’t be able to comprehend the upsetting. ‘When I took the first photo of my mother at the nursing home it was a very difficult time,’ Mr Edwards told Mail Online. ‘I had just visited my father who was very sick in hospital and then went to see my mum. We couldn’t have a conversation and I think I took a photograph as a way of coping with the upset. ‘Later I had a chat with my dad and asked him if he thought she would want photos of her to be published to raise awareness of the disease. He said it was definitely what she would have wanted.’
How the disease slowly stole my mother away
he father-of three wants the images to help shed light on a disease that he said has been ‘left in the shadows.’ He said: ‘Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease as it takes away the very soul of someone. This issue is too often locked away and there just isn’t the same amount of research and funding as there is for something like cancer.’
Mr Edwards, 50, said he found himself grieving through his art for his mother. He said the disease ‘leaves their body behind - a person you no longer know, and who no longer knows you’. There is no known cause of Alzheimer’s. In a poll of more than 2,000 people for Alzheimer’s Research, 35 per cent feared dementia more than anything, compared with 26 per cent who dreaded cancer. Mr Edwards, from Braintree, said: ‘Taking photographs of her helps keep me occupied. It helps to avoid the thought that regularly occurs: If only I could travel back in time and have one last, long chat. ‘I would thank her for looking after me when I was a child... I would thank her for caring and believing in me... I just wish I could do as good a job for her as she did for me.’ Mr Edwards noticed she had become forgetful before she was diagnosed in 2006, but knew very little about dementia at the time. ‘Back then I thought Alzheimer’s Disease just meant absent minded. Now with hindsight I can see that her personality had changed. Life became more difficult for her and and simple things would upset her.
‘She had always been independent but she began to lose confidence. Once she rang me to say she had parked the car and couldn’t find it. ‘Then one Christmas we were having tea. I was talking to mum and she was a bit vague. ‘I went and sat somewhere else and she leaned across to dad and said: “Who is that chap that has been talking to me?” I was upset and shocked. It hit home. It was a tough moment.’
June, who had once loved amateur dramatics and had helped at a primary school, lived at home with her husband Don until 2009 and then went into a nursing home for short periods when his health failed. ‘There was a stigma among my parent’s generation about mental decline,’ Mr Edwards said. ‘My dad didn’t want her in a care home but by the end of 2009 he couldn’t leave hospital. ‘He broke out eight times to try and go and see mum. Once her made it to the nursing home but was so ill when he arrived he just lay gasping on her bed.’
Mr Edwards father died last April and Mark and his brother, who lives in Dubai, decided not to tell their mother. ‘We decided she wouldn’t really understand what was happening if she went to the funeral,’ he said. ‘She still uses his name occasionally in disjointed sentences.’
Company director Mr Edwards said he goes to see his mother every couple of weeks but it torn about whether his visits do more harm than good. ‘When she is having a difficult time I do wonder whether my visits help. She can become upset as for her it’s like having a stranger walk into her bedroom. ‘Sometimes she just paces the corridors and tells me to go away. ‘I hope maybe she can recognise my voice or even if she just has some feeling of familiarity.’
Photography helps Mr Edwards come to terms with his loss. He recalled working on a picture called ‘birthday’, which he has published on photo-sharing website Flicker. He wrote: ‘I shed tears for the first time over the partial loss of my mother. ‘This precipitated my acceptance of her condition and the realisation that, even though she was still with me, there was also a grieving process I had to go through for the part of her that I had lost; acknowledging that fact somehow helped.’
Dr Marie Janson, Director of Development at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘Since Mark first got in touch with us last year offering his support, he’s done a tremendous job helping to raise the profile of dementia through his photography. His photographs show the devastating impact dementia has on people’s lives. ‘Mark was so shocked to learn that dementia research is desperately underfunded, he has also lined up a number of fundraising projects to raise money for our pioneering work to find new treatments and an eventual cure. ‘There are 820,000 people in the UK today living with the daily reality of dementia, a figure set to rise substantially unless new treatments are found. Dementia poses one of the greatest threats to public health now and in the future and research is the only answer.’
Mr Edwards, who acts a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, is planning a photography exhibition to raise awareness of the condition. He would like people with the disease or their relatives who would like to be involved to email him at mark@documentboss.com
June Edwards, 74, now lives in a care home in Essex. She is unaware her husband of 53 years died last April as her son fears she wouldn’t be able to comprehend the upsetting. ‘When I took the first photo of my mother at the nursing home it was a very difficult time,’ Mr Edwards told Mail Online. ‘I had just visited my father who was very sick in hospital and then went to see my mum. We couldn’t have a conversation and I think I took a photograph as a way of coping with the upset. ‘Later I had a chat with my dad and asked him if he thought she would want photos of her to be published to raise awareness of the disease. He said it was definitely what she would have wanted.’
How the disease slowly stole my mother away
he father-of three wants the images to help shed light on a disease that he said has been ‘left in the shadows.’ He said: ‘Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease as it takes away the very soul of someone. This issue is too often locked away and there just isn’t the same amount of research and funding as there is for something like cancer.’
Mr Edwards, 50, said he found himself grieving through his art for his mother. He said the disease ‘leaves their body behind - a person you no longer know, and who no longer knows you’. There is no known cause of Alzheimer’s. In a poll of more than 2,000 people for Alzheimer’s Research, 35 per cent feared dementia more than anything, compared with 26 per cent who dreaded cancer. Mr Edwards, from Braintree, said: ‘Taking photographs of her helps keep me occupied. It helps to avoid the thought that regularly occurs: If only I could travel back in time and have one last, long chat. ‘I would thank her for looking after me when I was a child... I would thank her for caring and believing in me... I just wish I could do as good a job for her as she did for me.’ Mr Edwards noticed she had become forgetful before she was diagnosed in 2006, but knew very little about dementia at the time. ‘Back then I thought Alzheimer’s Disease just meant absent minded. Now with hindsight I can see that her personality had changed. Life became more difficult for her and and simple things would upset her.
‘She had always been independent but she began to lose confidence. Once she rang me to say she had parked the car and couldn’t find it. ‘Then one Christmas we were having tea. I was talking to mum and she was a bit vague. ‘I went and sat somewhere else and she leaned across to dad and said: “Who is that chap that has been talking to me?” I was upset and shocked. It hit home. It was a tough moment.’
June, who had once loved amateur dramatics and had helped at a primary school, lived at home with her husband Don until 2009 and then went into a nursing home for short periods when his health failed. ‘There was a stigma among my parent’s generation about mental decline,’ Mr Edwards said. ‘My dad didn’t want her in a care home but by the end of 2009 he couldn’t leave hospital. ‘He broke out eight times to try and go and see mum. Once her made it to the nursing home but was so ill when he arrived he just lay gasping on her bed.’
Mr Edwards father died last April and Mark and his brother, who lives in Dubai, decided not to tell their mother. ‘We decided she wouldn’t really understand what was happening if she went to the funeral,’ he said. ‘She still uses his name occasionally in disjointed sentences.’
Company director Mr Edwards said he goes to see his mother every couple of weeks but it torn about whether his visits do more harm than good. ‘When she is having a difficult time I do wonder whether my visits help. She can become upset as for her it’s like having a stranger walk into her bedroom. ‘Sometimes she just paces the corridors and tells me to go away. ‘I hope maybe she can recognise my voice or even if she just has some feeling of familiarity.’
Photography helps Mr Edwards come to terms with his loss. He recalled working on a picture called ‘birthday’, which he has published on photo-sharing website Flicker. He wrote: ‘I shed tears for the first time over the partial loss of my mother. ‘This precipitated my acceptance of her condition and the realisation that, even though she was still with me, there was also a grieving process I had to go through for the part of her that I had lost; acknowledging that fact somehow helped.’
Dr Marie Janson, Director of Development at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘Since Mark first got in touch with us last year offering his support, he’s done a tremendous job helping to raise the profile of dementia through his photography. His photographs show the devastating impact dementia has on people’s lives. ‘Mark was so shocked to learn that dementia research is desperately underfunded, he has also lined up a number of fundraising projects to raise money for our pioneering work to find new treatments and an eventual cure. ‘There are 820,000 people in the UK today living with the daily reality of dementia, a figure set to rise substantially unless new treatments are found. Dementia poses one of the greatest threats to public health now and in the future and research is the only answer.’
Mr Edwards, who acts a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, is planning a photography exhibition to raise awareness of the condition. He would like people with the disease or their relatives who would like to be involved to email him at mark@documentboss.com
Memory cells killed by Alzheimer's are grown in lab for the first time and could 'repair brain damage'
Fiona Macrae
Scientists have turned ordinary skin cells into brain cells key to the memory loss of Alzheimer’s disease. Grown in a dish in their millions, the cells can be used to test new drugs, hugely speeding up the quest for pills capable of halting the march of the disease. The cells could also be used to learn more about how Alzheimer’s exerts its devastating toll on the brain. One day, healthy brain cells could even be transplanted into patients, to replace those damaged and destroyed by dementia.
Alzheimer’s charities said that while the research is at an early stage, it is a major step forward in the fight against the disease. While stem cells have been turned into brains cells hit by Alzheimer’s before, this is the first time that scientists have hit upon the recipe for crucial cells called basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. Despite only being present in small numbers in the brain, they are vital to the retrieval of memories. Their death early in the progression of Alzheimer’s has a swift and devastating effect on the ability to remember.
US researcher Christopher Bissonnette spent six years working on the cocktail of chemicals and vitamins needed to turn embryonic stem cells and normal skin cells into these vital brain cells. Dr Bissonnette, of Northwestern University in Chicago, said: ‘The technique to produce these neurons allows for an almost infinite number of these cells to be grown in labs, allowing other scientists the ability to study why this one population of cells selectively dies in Alzheimer’s disease.’
The research is at the early stages but brings us a step closer to using stem cells to repair damage to the brain. Dr Bis sonnette, whose research was motivated by his grandfather’s death from Alzheimer’s, said: ‘I watched the disease slowly and relentlessly destroy his memory and individuality and I was powerless to help him. ‘That drove me to become a scientist. I wanted to discover new treatments to reverse the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease.’ The researchers have made basal forebrain cholinergic neurons from embryonic stem cells. They have also used skin from healthy people, Alzheimer’s patients, and healthy people thought to be at higher than average risk of the disease, to make cells.
Comparing the cells from the three groups could shed new light on the causes of the disease. Dr Jack Kessler, the study’s senior author, said: ‘This gives us a new way to study diseased human Alzheimer’s cells. ‘These are real people with real disease. That’s why it’s exciting.’ Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia affect more than 800,000 Britons, with the number expected to double in a generation as the population ages. Existing drugs can delay the progress of the symptoms, but their effect wears off relatively quickly, allowing the disease to take its devastating course.
Professor Clive Ballard, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘This study is a major step forward in developing treatments for Alzheimer’s. ‘For the first time researchers have worked out how to transform stem cells into a specific type of nerve cell that is key in the development of the disease. ‘These findings could help us develop new drugs that could benefit people with Alzheimer’s. ‘We now need further research to find out whether these stem cells actually work in the brain. ‘Dementia research is desperately underfunded. We must invest more now if we are to move forward in our understanding of this devastating condition.’
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, gave the breakthrough a more cautious welcome. He said: ‘We’re a very long way off transplanting stem cells as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, but this development could boost progress towards treatments by making the disease easier to study in the lab. ‘Stem cell research has the potential to increase our understanding about what happens in the brain when Alzheimer’s takes hold. ‘If we can understand what causes the brain cells to die we will have a better chance of finding ways to prevent cell death and fight the disease. ‘However, the science behind stem cell therapy is still at an early stage and there is no evidence yet to suggest this method will be able to help people with dementia.’
Fiona Macrae
Scientists have turned ordinary skin cells into brain cells key to the memory loss of Alzheimer’s disease. Grown in a dish in their millions, the cells can be used to test new drugs, hugely speeding up the quest for pills capable of halting the march of the disease. The cells could also be used to learn more about how Alzheimer’s exerts its devastating toll on the brain. One day, healthy brain cells could even be transplanted into patients, to replace those damaged and destroyed by dementia.
Alzheimer’s charities said that while the research is at an early stage, it is a major step forward in the fight against the disease. While stem cells have been turned into brains cells hit by Alzheimer’s before, this is the first time that scientists have hit upon the recipe for crucial cells called basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. Despite only being present in small numbers in the brain, they are vital to the retrieval of memories. Their death early in the progression of Alzheimer’s has a swift and devastating effect on the ability to remember.
US researcher Christopher Bissonnette spent six years working on the cocktail of chemicals and vitamins needed to turn embryonic stem cells and normal skin cells into these vital brain cells. Dr Bissonnette, of Northwestern University in Chicago, said: ‘The technique to produce these neurons allows for an almost infinite number of these cells to be grown in labs, allowing other scientists the ability to study why this one population of cells selectively dies in Alzheimer’s disease.’
The research is at the early stages but brings us a step closer to using stem cells to repair damage to the brain. Dr Bis sonnette, whose research was motivated by his grandfather’s death from Alzheimer’s, said: ‘I watched the disease slowly and relentlessly destroy his memory and individuality and I was powerless to help him. ‘That drove me to become a scientist. I wanted to discover new treatments to reverse the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease.’ The researchers have made basal forebrain cholinergic neurons from embryonic stem cells. They have also used skin from healthy people, Alzheimer’s patients, and healthy people thought to be at higher than average risk of the disease, to make cells.
Comparing the cells from the three groups could shed new light on the causes of the disease. Dr Jack Kessler, the study’s senior author, said: ‘This gives us a new way to study diseased human Alzheimer’s cells. ‘These are real people with real disease. That’s why it’s exciting.’ Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia affect more than 800,000 Britons, with the number expected to double in a generation as the population ages. Existing drugs can delay the progress of the symptoms, but their effect wears off relatively quickly, allowing the disease to take its devastating course.
Professor Clive Ballard, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘This study is a major step forward in developing treatments for Alzheimer’s. ‘For the first time researchers have worked out how to transform stem cells into a specific type of nerve cell that is key in the development of the disease. ‘These findings could help us develop new drugs that could benefit people with Alzheimer’s. ‘We now need further research to find out whether these stem cells actually work in the brain. ‘Dementia research is desperately underfunded. We must invest more now if we are to move forward in our understanding of this devastating condition.’
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, gave the breakthrough a more cautious welcome. He said: ‘We’re a very long way off transplanting stem cells as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, but this development could boost progress towards treatments by making the disease easier to study in the lab. ‘Stem cell research has the potential to increase our understanding about what happens in the brain when Alzheimer’s takes hold. ‘If we can understand what causes the brain cells to die we will have a better chance of finding ways to prevent cell death and fight the disease. ‘However, the science behind stem cell therapy is still at an early stage and there is no evidence yet to suggest this method will be able to help people with dementia.’
