Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am taking on the difficult challenge of organising and taking part in a Charity bike ride from East Peckham in Kent all the way to Newquay Cornwall in September to raise money for the Alzheimer's Society.

I have assembled a group of friends which have all (stupidly & in some cases under the influence of alcohol) agreed to join me on this short ride through the countryside. We are planning on splitting the 300 mile journey over 4 Days.

With a lot to be planned in the coming months I wanted to get this page up and running so that you can track our progress and make sure everyone is putting in the time on the saddle to ensure we all make the ride. I will keep a blog on both this and our team site, which should make for some interesting reading over the coming months.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I look forward to your support

This is a charity close to my heart as my  mum has Alzheimers and is in the fairly advanced stages, as a family we have had first hand experience of the illness over the past 5 years or so, spending time with other sufferers as well as the carers who do such an amazing job.

A family member of an Alzheimers sufferer on a support forum refers to people with the disease as the Invisibles. Alzheimers is a terminal illness as is Cancer, although instead of being surrounded by people they love and having the chance to say their goodbyes and spend precious time with their family before the disease fully takes hold, Alzheimers sufferers tend to have a very different experience. People find this disease difficult to face and I believe sufferers should receive the same level of love and attention they always have unfortunately the nature of the disease makes it easy for them to become 'invisible'.

Below are some quite scary facts regarding Alzheimers:-

What is dementia?

Dementia describes different brain disorders that trigger a loss of brain function. These conditions are all usually progressive and eventually severe.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, affecting 62 per cent of those diagnosed.

Other types of dementia include; vascular dementia affecting 17 per cent of those diagnosed, mixed dementia affecting 10 per cent of those diagnosed.

Symptoms of dementia include memory loss, confusion and problems with speech and understanding. Dementia is a terminal condition.

Who is affected?

There are 750,000 people with dementia in the UK. By 2021 there will be over 940,000 people living with dementia.  This will soar to 1.7 million by 2050.

One in three people over 65 will die with dementia

More than 60 per cent of all care home residents, aged over 65, have a form of dementia.

There are over 16,000 people under 65 with dementia in the UK.

Dementia affects 11,000 people from black and minority ethnic groups in the UK.

How much does it cost?

By 2018 dementia will cost the UK £27 billion per annum.

Unpaid carers supporting someone with dementia save the economy £6 billion a year.

Dementia is one of the main causes of disability later in life, ahead of cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke. As a country we spend much less on dementia than on these other conditions.

How does the UK compare to other countries?

More than 24 million people have dementia today with the numbers affected doubling every 20 years to more than 80 million by 2040.

Another 4.6 million people will develop dementia around the world this year.

What about treatments and research?

There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease or any other type of dementia. Delaying the onset of dementia by five years would halve the number of deaths from the condition, saving 30,000 lives a year.

Dementia research is desperately underfunded. The government invests eight times less in dementia research than cancer research.

In 2007-08 cancer research received £248.2 million, while dementia research received just £32.34 million.

Alzheimer's Society invests over £6 million in dementia research to improve care for people today and find a cure for tomorrow.

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