The greatest pleasures in life are often the simplest: laughing over childhood memories with an old friend. Shopping for the family dinner. Planning the next holiday over a cup of coffee. Chatting online with relatives who live in other cities, other countries.

These are the very things that Alzheimer’s disease steals away and never gives back. Alzheimer’s can progress gradually or quickly, but patients inevitably lose their memory, their ability to think, to plan, to recognise even those closest to them. Their entire identity is essentially lost both to the world and to themselves.