Author Archives: Maureen
”I have dementia, but I still have a life to live”
”I have dementia, but I still have a life to live”
15 November 2012
How to respond to the growing challenge of dementia with patchy levels of diagnosis, care and support were among the issues discussed at Public Service Events’ Dementia, a National Crisis conference in Manchester. Caroline Pennington reports
October saw the new Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, promise that NHS dementia care in England would be the best in the world by 2015. A week prior to this bold affirmation the mood on the challenge of dementia at the Manchester conference centre was one of hesitant optimism gritted with realism.
Andrew Chidgey, director of external affairs at the Alzheimer’s Society, reminded delegates of the pervasive nature of the illness. “It is the personal experience of people living with dementia, their carers and families, which people are finding very difficult,” he said. “People are being diagnosed late, or not at all. People often are not getting the care and support – at the right time – that they need.”
Lonely elderly ‘don’t want to impose’ on busy neighbours, study finds
ALMOST a million older people in Britain do not know even their closest neighbours because they do not want to get in the way, a study of attitudes to loneliness shows.
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor
7:00AM GMT 15 Nov 2012
The most common reasons given by elderly people for not getting to know those living close to them was that younger neighbours “always seem to be so busy” or that they did not wish to be a burden.
Overall about 3.5 million people over 65 get no help, support or companionship from those living nearest to them, research carried out for the charity Age UK found.
The findings were published as the charity launched of a campaign to promote neighbourliness between generations ahead of the winter.
It wants to see the “Great British spirit” demonstrated during the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee celebrations translated into practical help for older people this winter.
The mentally ill are still neglected and stigmatised
The mentally ill are still neglected and stigmatised – just as I found they were 10 years ago
The Schizophrenia Commission’s report, published today, is an indictment of the way we treat some of our most vulnerable citizens. Jeremy Laurance laments a lost decade in mental healthcare
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Ten years ago I spent six months touring the country observing the care provided to people with mental illness for a book I was writing. Pure Madness, published in 2003, described a system “driven by fear”, in which risk reduction and protection of the public was the priority, rather than the care of patients. The public and political focus on the tiny numbers who posed a risk had distracted attention from the “huge majority of frightened, disturbed people whose suffering remains largely hidden”, I wrote.
