Nominations open for Cornwall's BBC Make a Difference Awards
Nominations for the 2025 BBC Make A Difference Awards (MAD) have opened for Cornwall. The BBC's annual local radio campaign, initiated during the peak of the pandemic, aims to honour the contributions of people within their communities.Volunteers, fundraisers, environmentalists and outstanding neighbours are celebrated, along with community groups making a positive difference.Last year's Community Project of the Year winners, Parky Blinders, went onto secure funding to run free training courses to expand across the country.
Based out of Newquay Boxing Academy, the group runs adapted sessions to help people with Parkinson's disease feel included in exercise and manage the condition.
'Getting bigger and bigger'
Founder Richard Power said winning the MAD award was an "amazing" part of a great year for the charity. "It's getting bigger and bigger and since then loads of people have joined the boxing academy," he said."We've expanded our coaching programme, we've created a programme with England Boxing, which is the national governing body for the sport".The £17,000 funding from Parkinson's UK and England Boxing has allowed the group to train more boxing coaches around the country."We're looking at potentially 150 coaches qualified to deliver Parkinson's boxing," Mr Power said.
Ann Curtis-Clarke joined the sessions after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.She told BBC Radio Cornwall that it had changed her attitude towards her condition. "I had always been pretty physically active and all of a sudden I felt a real disability," she said."I turned up at Parky Blinders and I just really loved what they were doing."When I started Parky Blinders I was walking really slowly and now I'm back to walking normal pace, so it filters through to your whole life in a really beneficial way."Each BBC local radio station has 32 finalists, four in each of the eight categories, and their stories are broadcast throughout the summer.Nominations are open until Monday 31 March, view the full list of categories here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
9 hours ago
- Metro
Your earwax might be able to predict if you have Parkinson's disease
Chemical differences in people' earwax may be a telltale sign of Parkinson's that could revolutionise the fight against the disease, new research suggests. Parkinson's disease, which affects physical movement by damaging the brain, is very hard to diagnose early on. The high cost of brain scans means the only widely viable method is a specialist's evaluation of physical symptoms, which develop only after significant damage to the brain has happened. Since early treatment makes a huge difference in later quality of life, experts are keen to find other ways to detect it. The idea that people with Parkinson's give off different chemicals gained traction after credible evidence emerged that they smell noticeably different. Joy Milne, a retired Scottish nurse in her 70s with a rare condition giving her heightened smell, came forward in 2016 after noticing a distinct change in the smell of her late husband when he began to develop the disease. She was able to guess 100% correctly whether randomly picked items of clothing had belonged to someone with Parkinson's. Since then, early research proved promising for a skin swab test that involves running a cotton bud along the back of the neck. Scientists believe people with Parkinson's have different levels of certain compounds in their sebum, an oily substance produced by glands in the skin. Now another potential method building on this may have been discovered by scientists from Zhejiang University in China. Since earwax is made mostly of sebum, they decided to analyse samples from around 200 people who were known to be living with or without Parkinson's. Data on the chemical make-up of their earwax was into an algorithm that correctly guessed whether an individual had Parkinson's or not 94% of the time. This was based on the levels of four specific types of compounds, which were significant regardless of each person's age and lifestyle. Two of them, ethylbenzene & 4-ethyltoluene, are known to be signs of inflammation in the brain previously linked to Parkinson's. More Trending Another was pentanal, which has been linked to accumulations of protein clumps in patients' brains that are a telltale sign of Parkinson's. The study's authors said 'early diagnosis and treatment are crucial' for treatment. It's hoped their model could lead to a chemical testing device that could be easily distributed to clinics. 'Further enhancements to the diagnostic model could pave the way for a promising new PD diagnostic solution and the clinical use of a bedside PD diagnostic device.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page.
BBC News
16 hours ago
- BBC News
Kimberley Nixon feels 'lighter' after ADHD and autism diagnosis
A Welsh actress says a "huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders" after being diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Kimberley Nixon, star of Channel 4's Fresh Meat, developed perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), after giving birth to her son during the 2020 said her worries about her baby's well-being escalated into intense anxiety, with symptoms lasting around two and a half years. As she began to recover, other lifelong patterns started to make sense, prompting her to seek a diagnosis. Following a series of in-depth assessments and standard diagnostic tests, she was formally diagnosed with autism and ADHD on an interview with BBC Radio Wales, Nixon told presenter Behnaz Akhgar: "We all know what the NHS is like when it comes to waiting lists, so it's taken a while. "The assessments are incredibly thorough - they dig into every little nook and cranny of your life and your past."The actress, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, known for her roles in Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, said she now feels "lighter" and is "kinder" to herself, which she described as "really lovely."Reflecting on the diagnosis, she said: "It's that square peg in a round hole feeling. "I've realised it's not that my brain is wrong - it's just different. "I don't process or interpret things the same way others do. "That always felt like a problem. "But now, it just feels like a difference." Nixon also spoke about her experience of being diagnosed with perinatal OCD, which is when you experience OCD during pregnancy or in the first year after giving is a mental health condition characterised by intrusive thoughts and compulsive years of IVF, she gave birth to her son during the 2020 pandemic, which she described as the "big catalyst" for her struggles."I went through a really tough time postpartum," she said. "Eventually, I was diagnosed with perinatal OCD - which I didn't even know was a thing. "Once you start looking into it, you realise it's actually quite common."Nixon said the condition did not present in the typical ways people associate with OCD. "I'm not a neat freak, I don't tick the usual boxes - but with perinatal OCD, I absolutely did," she said. "It involved really distressing intrusive thoughts, repetitive thinking, and punishing compulsions - just to relieve the anxiety."Last year, she told BBC Radio Wales' Books That Made Me with Lucy Owen: "I was just convinced that I wasn't doing things right. "I wasn't feeding him right. What temperature is he supposed to be?"Every time he cried I was just sort of shaking - I just got really hyper vigilant and terrified."Since learning more about the condition, Nixon has made it a priority to speak openly about it, saying it's "not as widely recognised as postnatal depression". In Thursday's interview, Nixon also spoke about her latest role in the ITV series Shardlake. She plays the character Joan in the four-part drama, which is based on CJ Sansom's historical mystery first season adapts the book Dissolution. The story follows lawyer Matthew Shardlake as he investigates a murder at a remote monastery during the reign of Henry a graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, said the series was filmed in Budapest and it felt like "a little Hungarian Welsh college reunion", as fellow cast members Arthur Hughes and Anthony Boyle also trained at the same institution.
Scottish Sun
16 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
The strange sign in your EARWAX that can predict if you'll develop devastating brain disorder
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) YOUR earwax could be used to predict whether you'll develop Parkinson's, scientists say, About 153,000 people in the UK live with the devastating neurological disorder, caused by a loss of nerve cells in the brain. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 Earwax could be used to predict whether someone will get Parkinson's or catch the disease in its early stages Credit: Getty The progressive disease is characterised by symptoms such as tremors, slow movement and muscle stiffness, which slowly get worse. According to researchers Zhejiang University in China, most Parkinson's treatments only slow the disease's progression, so early diagnosis is important for managing symptoms. But current tests for spotting the disease - such as brain scans or rating scales - can be expensive or subjective, they said. Now, a study published to Analytical Chemistry suggests that earwax could be used as a cost effective way to screen people for Parkinson's. Researchers claimed they'd developed a new AI system that could help catch the disease at an early stage, using earwax samples. Previous studies have shown that changes in sebum - an oily substance secreted by the skin - could help identify people with Parkinson's. Sebum from people with the disease may have a characteristic, musky smell because volatile organic compounds released by sebum are altered by disease progression. But sebum on the surface of the skin isn't a reliable substance for testing as it's exposed to pollution or humidity, which can change its composition. However, sebum in ear canals is sheltered from the elements. Seeing as the oily substance is the main component of earwax and it's easy to sample, researchers decided to use it for their screening tool. Good Morning Britain star reveals Parkinson's diagnosis after tragic death of his wife To identify the compounds released by sebum in people with Parkinson's, the researchers swabbed the ear canals of 209 participants, more than half of which were diagnosed with the condition. They then analysed wax samples, identifying four volatile organic compounds specific to people with Parkinson's. Those include ethylbenzene, 4-ethyltoluene, pentanal, and 2-pentadecyl-1,3-dioxolane. Researchers said these could serve as potential biomarkers for Parkinson's. Using these findings, they were able to develop a system that inexpensively screens for Parkinson's. Everything you need to know about Parkinson's Parkinson's is a progressive neurological condition, meaning that it causes problems in the brain and gets worse over time. It affects around 153,000 people in the UK. People with Parkinson's don't have enough of the chemical dopamine because some of the nerve cells that make it have stopped working. This can cause a range of more than 40 symptoms, but the three main ones are: Tremor (shaking) Slow movement Rigidity (muscle stiffness) Other common signs include: Mild memory and thinking problems Trouble sleeping Issues with balance Pain Anxiety and depression Shuffling walk with very small steps Difficulty making facial expressions Loss of sense of smell Problems peeing Constipation The four main ways of managing Parkinson's include medication, staying active, exploring occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language therapy, and monitoring symptoms. Source: Parkinson's UK and NHS They trained an artificial intelligence olfactory system - a robotic model that can mimic how we smell - with their ear wax compound data. They found it was able to categorise samples with and without Parkinson's with 94 percent accuracy. Researchers suggested their system could be used to a first-line screening tool for early Parkinson's detection and could help improve care for condition by making it possible to administer treatments earlier. Author Hao Dong said: 'This method is a small-scale single-center experiment in China." 2 'The next step is to conduct further research at different stages of the disease, in multiple research centres and among multiple ethnic groups, in order to determine whether this method has greater practical application value.' Earlier this year, scientists warned of a surge in cases of Parkinson's. They said 25 million people across the world will be living with the debilitating brain condition by 2050. Researchers from Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, estimated that an ageing population would drive the surge in cases of Parkinson's disease over the next 25 years. According to Parkinson's UK, the condition is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world.
