Chris Maddocks

This open access book explores the expectations surrounding dementia, what it ‘looks like’ and how people have been treated by others. It aims to raise awareness of the different types of dementia, and how they impact the brain, body, and lived experience, including experience of Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular Dementia, Posterior Cortical Atrophy, Frontotemporal Dementia, Semantic Dementia, and Lewy Body Dementia. The co-authors reflect on their experience with informal and formal care, before finishing with a focus on the spectrum of dementia research from clinical trials to user-led research. Throughout the book, co-authors have shared personal stories of how dementia has affected them and people with lived experience of dementia share what they wish people knew about living with the disease. Co-produced by people with lived experience of dementia, academics and health care professionals, this book is an accessible resource about dementia from the perspective of people actively involved in the field and essential reading for healthcare professionals wishing to learn more about the experience of this neuroprogressive condition, as well as policymakers, and members of the public.

In January 1940 Fred Ellison joined the RAF and was sent to serve in the Far East on 1st June 1941. On 8th March 1942 Fred was captured as a Prisoner of War and was released on 15th September 1945. During this time family members wrote weekly despite not knowing whether Fred was alive from March 1942 until 30 December 1943 when his wife Alice received a postcard notifying her that he was a POW. The letters transcribed are the surviving letters that Fred did not tell anyone about until he showed one to his niece Irene in the 1980s. This is a book that Fred wished to have made for future generations to gain an insight into what the family went through during this time.