Carol Sargent:

Travel Advisor for CareGivers and those Receiving Care.

Carol believes in positive risk taking to empower and enable people to experience travel and tourism alongside any invisible or visible disabilities they may have.

Carol's first career was as a scientist, obtaining a PhD on omega-3 fatty acids and cardiovascular disease from Edinburgh University. She then pursued a career in the pharmaceutical industry in the US with Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck in cardiovascular disease, and then in the UK with Aventis and AstraZeneca in respiratory disease. This culminated in her drug project being evaluated in clinical trials costing in excess of $700 million.

When dementia entered her families lives, she left her scientific carer and founded the UK's first year-round specialist dementia holiday organisation. As a hands-on leader driven by evidence-based research, she demonstrated that anybody still living at home with dementia can experience the joy of holidays. Furthermore, her organisation generated evidence which unambiguously demonstrated improvements in health and well-being after just one 4-day holiday.

Carol's approach is based on understanding the person, what they want to achieve and finding solutions which enables them to live their best lives. She applies her scientific logic and rigor to accurately evaluate risk/benefits to enable people to select travel and tourism experiences that allow them to add life to their years.

Through her wealth of experience, Carol and her consultancy group provides a practical approach which focuses on overcoming barriers rather being constrained by our worries, all rooted in evidence based solutions acquired through enabling the dementia community to have fabulous holidays and through applying new evidence based innovations.