Dr Anna Volkmer is an Associate Professor in the department of Language and Cognition at UCL and an honorary consultant SLT at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH. She has worked clinically for almost 25 years across the UK and Australia. Her work has focused on supporting people with dementia, specifically primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and their families.
Dr Volkmer leads a program of NIHR funded research co-developing and trialling speech and language therapy interventions such as Better Conversations for people with PPA. She has led some of the first randomised controlled trials in this field, embedding trials within the NHS to support implementation. Also, she has led several international collaborations, and in 2020 she founded the International SLT/P PPA Network, a group of around 50 international clinical-academic SLTs working with people with PPA.
Nationally, Dr Volkmer is a co-author on several RCLST position papers and has been a committee member of the Decision-Making and Mental Capacity NICE Guideline Committee. She also co-leads the UK PPA SLT network, and is a committee member on the RCLST DEMCEN and MCA CEN. Anna lectures on the speech and language therapy courses at UCL and City University. She is also the co-lead of the PPA support group at Rare Dementia Support.
