Ian McKeith

Ian McKeith is Emeritus Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at Newcastle University.
In 1995 he established the International Consortium on Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) which developed guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of the disorder which are now incorporated into the two most significant clinical diagnostic systems used worldwide (DSM5 and ICD11).

He led the first double-blind RCT to demonstrate efficacy of a cholinesterase inhibitor drug as providing symptomatic improvement in DLB, and a large pan-European imaging study which led to the regulatory approval of dopamine transporter imaging for DLB diagnosis.

In 2005, together with colleagues at University College, London, he established the UK National Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network (DeNDRoN) with funding from NIHR. McKeith was Director of DeNDRoN from 2005-2015

He has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2008, and from the American Alzheimer’s Association in 2015. In 2018 he received the European Grand Prix for Dementia Research from the Alzheimer Research Foundation.

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