Being Affected person Editor in Chief Deborah Kan displays on 2023, and appears forward to a giant new 12 months.
Pricey readers,
This 12 months has been a transformational one. However generally, it’s arduous to note change and development in actual time. This week, I’m making a while to replicate on what my mother would have considered what we’re constructing right here, if she had been cognizant of Being Affected person.
I keep in mind telling her six years in the past that I used to be beginning a platform in order that we might perceive extra about her Alzheimer’s analysis. After we launched, I confirmed her the web site and he or she checked out me incredulously and requested “That is all about me?”
Sadly at this time, in a later stage of Alzheimer’s, she has no concept how a lot we’ve grown — or how massive of an affect we’ve made.
After quitting my job on the Wall Road Journal, I launched Being Affected person on a decent funds, funding it with my financial savings account and by doing a six-month challenge for Bloomberg and pouring each dime of what I made to seed the preliminary launch. I knew that anybody who signed on wasn’t doing it for the large bucks however believed me once I stated sufferers and caregivers want a platform, a supply of fact about scientific analysis, a spot to get skilled recommendation and put affected person and caregiver insights within the heart of dialog across the seek for a remedy and prevention of Alzheimer’s illness.
Because of the extraordinary efforts of my staff, in 2023:
- We reached readers in greater than 200 nations and territories world wide;
- We acquired over 8 million web page views on our content material;
- We hosted practically 40 consultants, sufferers and caregivers in our Dwell Talks collection
- We blew previous 1 million views on our YouTube channel;
- Our group of subscribers and followers on our e-newsletter and social channels broke 100,000;
- We’ve launched a brand new collection of DEEP DIVES pages on sizzling subjects for our readers, like dementia misdiagnosis, and MCI. (FTD and vascular can be coming Q1 2024!);
- We launched an interactive studying platform of guides on subjects like dementia prevention, Alzheimer’s and genetics and the science and pathology of Alzheimer’s illness;
- We engaged 1000’s of sufferers and caregivers in our surveys, on vital subjects like analysis and trial participation, serving to bridge the hole between the world of docs, scientists and drug builders, and the households dwelling this expertise day-after-day.
Founders have visions, but it surely’s the individuals who imagine in your imaginative and prescient that make it doable to develop from an concept right into a actuality. It’s been a busy 12 months, however you’ve all supplied me with the reassurance that we’re heading in the right direction. Watch this area in 2024: We have now a number of extra work to do!
Dementia is rarely a straightforward journey, however as tough as my mother’s analysis has been, I take consolation in how all I’ve realized has enabled a great factor to occur: Being Affected person — and this group — retains rising.
With hope,
Deborah
In case you discover our articles and interviews useful, please contemplate turning into a supporting member of our group. Annoyed by the dearth of an editorially unbiased supply of knowledge on mind well being and Alzheimer’s illness, we determined to create Being Affected person. We’re a staff of devoted journalists protecting the newest analysis on Alzheimer’s, bringing you entry to the consultants and elevating the affected person perspective on what it’s prefer to dwell with dementia.
