Category Archives: Parkinsons

Singing brings harmony to sufferers of dementia

Dementia is not something anyone would like to associate with their own future.

Rutland Reminders’ volunteers get together for a singing session. They are from left, Clare Hitchcox, Pam Houlden, Janet Berridge, Dr Charles Lawrence, Diana Ellard, Ann Thomas, Mike Gee, Ruth Thomas-Twinn and Gill Lawrence.

Published on Sunday 7 October 2012 07:00

Dementia is not something anyone would like to associate with their own future.

Unless you have had direct experience of it, usually by way of an elderly relative, it’s a thing, like death, that most of us don’t like to think about.

And yet the World Heath Organisation describes dementia as the next global health time bomb: one in four people over 65 will develop it.

A huge worldwide increase in numbers is largely down to increased longevity. The Alzheimer’s Society estimates there are 800,000 sufferers in the UK, only a minority of whom have been diagnosed and who are mostly looked after by an estimated 600,000 unpaid carers.

Rutland Reminders is a group that was set up by a teacher in 2010 to help local sufferers.

Gadget lets you control computer with your eyes

A researcher in London has created a low-cost device which allows wearers to use their eye movements to control a computer

By Tom Levitt, for CNN
September 24, 2012 — Updated 0848 GMT (1648 HKT) |
A researcher in London has created a low-cost device which allows wearers to use their eye movements to control a computer

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • New low-cost glasses allow you a wearer to control gadgets, even objects with their eyes
  • Eye-tracking equipment could help Multiple Sclerosis and other brain disorders
  • Technology could start a new era of hands-free computing

(CNN) — Take two video-game console cameras and one pair of horn-rimmed glasses and for around $30 you have a device that will allow you to control a computer or, potentially, even a wheelchair with your eyes.

Previously, if you wanted to buy similar eye-tracking equipment it would have cost you upwards of $8,000. Now, scientists in London have pioneered a device, the GT3D, using components anyone of us can buy from the shopping mall.

The Norfolk Hospice recognises importance of supporting carers

The Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House recognises importance of supporting carers

By DAVID BLACKMORE Saturday, September 22, 2012
8:00 AM

  John and Doreen Hannant. Picture: Ian Burt

The Norfolk Hospice, Tapping House yesterday launched an appeal to raise £750,000 to improve palliative care services in the county. In the second of our five-part series, the EDP spoke to two carers who benefit from the charity’s practical and emotional support.

Caring for her husband is a 24/7 job for Doreen Hannant so any offer of a respite – no matter how small – is one she grabs with both hands.

Her husband John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease six years ago and last year was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.