• Are you interested in dementia research?
• Do you have experience of caring for or supporting someone with dementia?
• Do you want to share your views and experience to develop a research project?

About the research

Dementia is a complex disease. There is currently no cure, only treatments that temporarily reduce symptoms.

In spite of this, there are many examples of existing drug treatments shown to decrease dementia risk. These drugs are already being used to treat other diseases. What if we could use combinations of these drugs to treat the multiple factors that contribute to dementia?

Our research will explore how combinations of drug treatments for other diseases can potentially be used for the prevention of dementia.

About the focus group

We are looking for between 4-6 people from the Oxfordshire area to join a focus group to discuss our proposed research project and help make sure it reflects the priorities of patients and their families and carers.

We are looking for potential group members that:

• Have experience of or an interest in dementia research
• Have experience of caring for or supporting someone with dementia
• Would be happy to share their views in a group discussion about our research project

The focus group will last up to 2.5 hours. It will take place in November, at the Warneford Hospital site in Oxford. The date and time will be arranged in consultation with potential participants.

We will refund travel expenses and offer a payment of £30 for all focus group participants.

How to express an interest in joining the focus group

If you would be interested in being part of the focus group please send an email by the 1 October 2019, briefly outlining how you meet the criteria for the group, and why this project interests you, to: Danielle.Newby@psych.ox.ac.uk

This new course ran for the first time in January 2019, with an engaging and thought-provoking programme of talks, tours of facilities and group discussions. Feedback from participants was uniformly excellent. Applications for the January 2020 course are open until Friday 4th October 2019 .

The Oxford Short Course in Experimental Medicine for Mental Health (OxCEMM) provides a practical and comprehensive grounding in experimental medicine for mental health. It is aimed at those with a basic understanding, either at early stages in research, or planning to be actively involved in the future.

Are you aware of experimental medicine as an approach, but unsure how to begin your own study? Or are you supporting colleagues working on experimental medicine research projects, but unsure about the bigger picture?

The OxCEMM course is open to clinical and pre-clinical staff and trainees, and medical doctors at any career stage. It will be of interest to psychiatrists, neurologists, GPs and other specialists, nurses, basic scientists, allied health professionals and pharmacists.

OxCEMM 2020 promises to be an excellent opportunity to learn and improve skills and understanding of experimental medicine for mental health. Participants in the last course were engaged and enthusiastic. Even those who were already running experimental medicine studies said how much they had learnt and how useful it was to have all the practical information they need in a single place.

Associate Professor, Liz Tunbridge, NIHR Oxford Health Training Lead.

There are limited places and bursaries available. Bursaries will cover the costs of the course, accommodation, evening/daytime meals, as well as, refreshments and they will be awarded by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.

Immensely useful. Thank you so much for organising an intellectually stimulating course filled with inspirational content and pragmatic advice.

OxCEMM 2019 participant.

The full course brochure is now available here. Applications are open until 4th October 2019. Please email oxcemm@psych.ox.ac.uk for further information.

The course flyer is available here.

Patients, carers and advocates say better evidence is needed on the safety of ketamine for depression after long-term use, and that those prescribed it must be closely monitored.

These are the results of a study undertaken as part of a collaboration between the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and
NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. The research has been published in the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ BJPsych Open.

The study explored attitudes to the treatment among four groups: people considering ketamine as an antidepressant, people who have already used ketamine for depression, people with experience of illegal drug use and addiction, and patient advocates and carers. 44 people took part in 21 focus groups, and an online survey captured the views of patients, carers and advocates during a consultation day.

The majority (63 per cent) of participants felt careful monitoring of people using ketamine was required, both to gather evidence on effectiveness and side-effects, and to ensure safe use and administration. Most participants felt that the best system was to administer ketamine in a clinic on the first few occasions, then allow it to be taken at home to self-administer. However, there were mixed views across the group which require further investigation. Some had concerns about the risks of home administration, as well as about the lack of understanding of the drug among health professionals, and the stigma of ketamine as a party drug. Some participants were concerned about their ability to drive, work or care for their children responsibly after ketamine use, while others felt more information is needed about what experiences are normal or not when taking the drug. On the whole, however, those consulted felt the potential benefits outweighed the risks.

Lead author Dr Sagar Jilka, Research Associate at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, said: ‘It is vital that we listen to the views and concerns of people who may consider ketamine for their depression. A great deal of careful thought is needed before we roll out its use on a large scale – patients want to know what they are taking is safe. They want to have confidence in the people prescribing it and in the research behind it. They want to be informed about what to expect and how to manage side-effects and avoid dependency, and this information needs to be easily accessible and available to them’.

Joint senior author Professor Dame Til Wykes, who leads the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre’s work on patient and carer involvement and engagement, said: ‘Only a third of people with major depressive disorder achieve remission so there is an urgent need to find new and more effective treatments. But we also need to be sure we are keeping people safe and so we need to keep service users in the conversation in order to provide the best way to implement any new treatments.’

Joint senior author of the study, Professor Rupert McShane of Oxford Health BRC added: ‘Most participants thought that patients should provide information about their use of ketamine and their mood in order to be prescribed ketamine. They also felt that health information is too often not shared. Monitoring systems need to be joined up and not separate from clinical care’.

The publication of the paper comes after Professor Rupert McShane’s blog published on Friday 25 July in the BMJ, in which he called for a monitoring system for both ketamine and esketamine.On 13 July, the Guardian reported that Ketamine could be licensed for depression in the UK within a year and cited Professor Allan Young from the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre as saying the drug could “offer new hope” for “the substantial proportion of patients who do not respond to conventional drugs”.