The Alzheimer’s Society is urging people with dementia and their care workers to resist the temptation to ‘hibernate’ after the clocks go back this weekend.

The first drug that can potentially correct the underlying defect that causes Huntington’s disease has been taken by patients in a clinical trial.

Doctors at University College London, which is leading the study, said it was an important moment in tackling the incurable condition. Current medication treats the symptoms, but cannot slow or prevent the progressive damage to the brain. The Huntington’s Disease Association said the trial was “very exciting”.

Sitting down to write a grant application? Recently submitted a proposal or been successful in the last MRC board round? Building grant writing skills is a great way to help secure funding. With experience of working with various MRC boards and panels, Dr David Crosby, Programme Manager for Methodology and Experimental Medicine, has a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for. Here he describes how to master the application process and make your grant stand out from the rest.

NHS Choices Study, which tracked over 11,000 people for more than two years, found people who saw family and friends just once every few months had an 11.5% chance of later developing symptoms of depression, compared with a risk of 6.5% for those who met up at least three times a week.

At the launch of its report, Music Reawakening, the charity Arts 4 Dementia, urged doctors to integrate music therapy into the Dementia Care Pathway, which is the support and care given to people with dementia by health and social care.

Research conducted by a PhD Student at the University of Bedfordshire suggested that more than 80 per cent of older people with mental health problems, who were asked the question, have admitted to feeling lonely in their care home and long for staff to spend time with them.

“Calcium supplements don’t work, say experts,” The Daily Telegraph reports. While this headline is not strictly true, new research has shown that for most healthy people, calcium supplements will make little difference to your bone health or risk of breaking a bone.

“The ultimate goal of carrying out research into Parkinson’s is to develop new drugs that will make a difference to the lives of the millions of people around the world who are affected by this disorder”

Austerity has led to a reduction in the capacity of local authorities to undertake in-house research in adult social care, according to a new report by the Social Services Research Group. The report suggests that the social care research infrastructure in councils in England is shrinking and that social care research activity is also at risk in the independent sector.