Once a month, Lykke Vestergaard Kastbjerg, 42, and her father Niels, 73, travel from their homes in Denmark to London. They play brain-training games together on the short flight over the North Sea and look for nice restaurants to make each trip memorable. But the pair are not on holiday. They are visiting one of the world’s leading cognitive health clinics so Niels can receive a dose of a breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug they hope will give him precious extra time before the disease takes hold. Each trip is a tightly-planned operation, Lykke explains. “We fly early one day and have the MRI that afternoon, then I run down to the clinic with the CD with the pictures. The next day, he has the treatment in the morning and we fly home in the afternoon.”

Every month, Lykke Vestergaard Kastbjerg, 42, and her 73-year-old father, Niels, embark on a journey from Denmark to London. During the brief flight over the North Sea, they engage in brain-training exercises and scout for delightful dining spots to enrich their trips. However, these visits aren’t leisure trips. They are crucial appointments at a top-tier cognitive health clinic where Niels receives an innovative Alzheimer’s treatment. The meticulous planning of each trip is vital, Lykke shares, saying, “We catch an early flight and have the MRI done that afternoon. I then rush to the clinic with the scan images. The next morning, Niels undergoes treatment, and we’re back home by afternoon.”

Remarkably, some of these trips are squeezed into a single day, starting as early as 3 a.m. So far, they have completed this journey seven times and plan to continue for up to 18 months. Lykke, a single mother, emphasizes, “Apart from my children, this is my top priority. Nothing else matters as much right now.”

Many patients from abroad are believed to be traveling to the UK for access to Alzheimer’s treatments, including donanemab, which Niels is using, and lecanemab. Although both drugs are approved in the UK, they are only available via private prescription because their benefits were deemed insufficient to justify NHS coverage. During a recent visit, I had the opportunity to meet Lykke, Niels, and Dr. Emer MacSweeney, the neuroradiologist responsible for his care.

Some time after Niels’s diagnosis, Lykke attended a lecture by a woman who described how her mother lost her memory and her behaviour changed due to Alzheimer’s. The speaker told how her mum would sometimes lay the table with only forks or plates placed upside down.

Lykke says: “It hit me hard. Someday this will be my future, to stand in front of my father and maybe he won’t recognise me, or he’ll shout at me because he won’t know who I am. So I thought, ‘I have to do something’.”

After Niels’s diagnosis, Lykke attended a talk by a woman narrating her mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, where she described how the disease altered her mother’s memory and behavior. The speaker recounted instances like her mother setting the table with only forks or placing plates upside down.

Both have been licensed by the UK’s medicines regulator, which decides whether drugs are safe and effective, but rejected for NHS use. Similarly, lecanemab received marketing authorisation from the European Medicines Association in April 2025, but the Danish Medicines Council decided in December not to recommend it for use in public hospitals. Donanemab has also received the green light from the EMA and is under evaluation by the council.

When Lykke researched these treatment options, she was devastated. A drug existed that could slow her father’s disease but he could not access it. She says: “When you have someone with Alzheimer’s, every week counts. You don’t have time to wait. I started my own war against the Danish system. There is nothing, no help for him. You can get the diagnosis but there is nothing to do.”

Lyyke looked into private clinics including Re:Cognition Health, an award-winning brain and mind clinic that specialises in the diagnosis, treatment and care of cognitive impairments and mental health conditions. It was founded in London in 2011 by Dr MacSweeney and now has 10 locations across the UK and USA.

Re:Cognition Health is the leading centre in Europe for delivering lecanemab and donanemab, and sees patients who travel from more than 20 countries to access the drugs. After considering a range of clinics and speaking to Dr MacSweeney, the family decided Niels would fly to London for regular doses of donanemab. They had a gut feeling inspired by the expert’s clear passion for her work, Lykke remembers.

This newspaper revealed in January 2025 that the clinic had become the first private centre in Europe to roll out donanemab, a moment Dr MacSweeney described as “a significant milestone in the fight against Alzheimers”. Several months later, she remembers it as “one of the most momentous events in my career”.

She explains: “This is a treatment which is designed to remove the toxic amyloid protein in the brain which occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. It accumulates over about 20 years and then it reaches a level where it starts to cause symptoms. These are the symptoms which Niels experienced – problems with short-term memory, sometimes concentration, decision-making, sometimes problems with getting lost in a familiar environment,calculations or word-finding. Niels has got very mild symptoms so he is fortunately eligible.”

The drug is administered as an intravenous infusion over around 30 minutes. It crosses the blood-brain barrier, then acts to remove amyloid.

“Bringing the amyloid protein down also has a very positive effect on this other protein called tau, also helping to decrease theharmful effect,” Dr MacSweeney adds. “And then we have a whole new lease of life.”

Niels can take donanemab for a maximum of 18 months. He has regular MRI scans to check for signs of brain swelling or bleeding, a rare but serious side effect observed in clinical trials. Results from a major trial involving more than 1,100 people found the drug slowed the progression of dementia by 35%, equivalent to around a five-month delay in cognitive decline for patients with the early-stage disease.

The first three months of treatment cost around £15,000, plus flight and hotel costs, Lykke says. Elsebeth was also at her husband’s side when he received the first infusion on August 19.

So, is it working? “We’re not noticing anything getting worse and that’s a plus, but also what we expected,” Lykke says. “In the beginning, he also became more active, my mum said. At the moment she thinks it’s stable. It’s not getting better, but that’s not what we expected – you can’t build up what has been lost. I’m not living with him but I still think there are small improvements. We’re lucky that he doesn’t have any side effects.”

Lykke, who lives near Herning in central Denmark with her two teenage daughters – Mirah and Cilia – works in marketing and breeds Norwegian forest cats. She admits that arranging all thistravel and complex medical care has been gruelling.

Dementia has turned her life upside down, but she has maintained a simple mantra: “We’re going to do it, one way or another.”

Lykke began posting about her experience on social media and created a Facebook page to share information with others who are in the same position. “I didn’t know anything about it before and now we need to know everything,” the devoted daughter says.

Niels is covering the cost of his treatment, but she adds: “It’s my dad’s life, it doesn’t have a price for me. If I had to sell my own house to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat. He has always been there for us.”

For now, Niels’s knowledge of sports and politics remains sharp. Lykke smiles: “I’m just hoping that it will stay this way. If he stays as he is now, then he has his charm, humour, kindness, sweetness. Maybe he doesn’t remember the news sometimes or he asks a question three times or tells the same stories, but for me, that’s still my dad. As long as his personality is there, that’s the absolute goal for me.”

If the drug doesn’t work, Lykke adds, then at least they enjoyed a few special dinners in London. “We make it quality time. It’s time I wouldn’t have had with him if it wasn’t for these trips.”