SCIENTISTS hope to be able to diagnose a form of dementia quicker thanks to a study which has been boosted by half-a-million pounds of new investment from charity Alzheimer’s Research UK.

The five year study at Newcastle University aims to develop tools that can pick up early clues of Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB), which affects about 130,000 people in the UK.

As well as memory and thinking difficulties, people with the condition can experience sleep disturbances, visual hallucinations and problems with their movement.

Rather than focus on biological changes in the brain, researchers are looking at nerve cell disruption in the heart as being an indicator of DLB following growing evidence that the toxic protein which causes it builds up in nerve cells around the body, not just the brain.

A scan to study changes in nerve cell communication in the heart with be trialled in people with mild cognitive impairment, a condition associated with mild memory and thinking difficulties, which can lead onto dementia.

The work is being carried out at the Campus for Ageing and Vitality, a Newcastle University and Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust collaboration.

Professor Alan Thomas, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, said: “We want to employ a sophisticated heart scan, already used in the NHS to detect other health conditions, to zero in on the earliest stages of dementia with Lewy Bodies.

“We will be recruiting volunteers from across the area to take part in this five-year study and this new funding will allow us to learn more about the initial stages of dementia with Lewy Bodies and refine the tools we can use to make an early diagnosis.”

Dr Emma O’Brien, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, which is funding the study said: “Nearly 35,000 people in the North-East are living with a form of dementia, including dementia with Lewy Bodies. It is hugely important that we invest in techniques that improve the accuracy and timeliness of a dementia diagnosis. Improved diagnostic accuracy will enable more tailored support networks to be put in place, improving the lives of people living with DLB and their loved ones.

“Alzheimer’s Research UK is pleased to be able to support this pioneering project.”