People with MND in Teesside urged to come forward to get support
The Dean Fox Foundation say they can help by offering grants
A charity in Teesside is appealing for people living with Motor Neurone Disease to come forward.
The Dean Fox Foundation say was officially set up earlier this year as a legacy for Dean who is from Middlesbrough.
The 54 year-old keen golfer was diagnosed with MND in August last year.
Sarah Holloway, who is a friend of Dean and his wife Christine, helped set up the charity and is a Trustee, said: "Obviously the initial reaction to the diagnosis was to deal with that, and then it was like 'OK, what can we do? What good can come from it?' And for me personally as a friend of Dean and Christine's I wanted to help in any way I could because I couldn't help them with the disease, but if I could help them with having something to focus on that was positive then this was it.
"We don't know how much impact we can have on research but of course where we can help we want to help. We need a day when MND has something because when they were sent home from hospital that night, there was 'off you go'. No nothing. There was nothing. The first question I asked was 'what's the medication?' There's one drug and that drug might extend Dean's life by three months. That's it.
"If there's people out there that don't have support then that was really important to Dean and Christine, because I think they were like 'if somebody's on this on their own, this must be unbearable.' And even by on their own, I don't mean as a person, I just mean as a couple living with it. If you don't have anybody around you who can just take the burden and support and help.
"This is a financially cruel disease as well because they can no longer work and then suddenly you're cut from the knees in terms of your ability to earn money, to live a good quality of life and you need things; top of the range wheelchairs, adaptions to houses and you need a different type of car.
"We want to help and see what we can, so in terms of our support pillars, we have the Foundation and the grant process where we can offer grants to people that need it whether it's a neck brace, a hoist for a car, a wheelchair or a ramp for the house, whatever it might be we want to offer that support."
You can find out more on The Dean Fox Foundation website.