Category Archives: Older care

We should have our own Dementiaville

April 10, 2012   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia, Older care

Dementiaville, or Hogewey, as it’s actually called, was started 20 years ago a short distance from Amsterdam

Miriam Stoppard

Dementiaville: Hogewey, Weesp, Holland

I ’m putting my family on notice: when I start dwindling into dementia I want them to put me into “Dementiaville”, the experimental village complete with supermarket, hairdresser, pub and theatre in the Netherlands.

Trained staff and carers are disguised as waitresses, hairdressers, barmen and barmaids, friends and extended family members. Not for me those soulless hospital wards where 15 to 20 people sit motionless and expressionless watching TV, the monotony only relieved by meals and medication.

That’s not living. It’s a kind of dying. And we’re committing almost a million people with dementia a year to this living death. What surprises me is that as a medical profession, as a government and as a society, we stand by and allow this horrible state of affairs to continue.

Dementiaville, or Hogewey, as it’s actually called, was started 20 years ago a short distance from Amsterdam by a woman and five other founder members who were determined to give patients with dementia a decent life.

Read More

WHO calls for a rethink of conventional definitions of what it means to be ‘old’

April 6, 2012   Cancer, Carers, family, health, Older care

Good health adds life to years

Edited by Jane Hill editor@wellbeingnorfolk.co.uk
On World Health Day [7 April], the World Health Organization [WHO] is calling for urgent action to ensure that, at a time when the world’s population is ageing rapidly, people reach old age in the best possible health.
In the next few years, for the first time, there will be more people in the world aged over 60 than children aged less than five. By 2050, 80 per cent of the world’s older people will be living in low– and middle–income countries.
The main health challenges for older people everywhere are non–communicable diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and lung disease.

Read More

Westminster council underspends adult care budget by £4.4m

April 1, 2012   Carers, disability, Older care
Westminster has reduced home care hours for disabled residents.

Westminster city council has underspent its adult social care budget by £4.4m so far this financial year, according to a report on the council’s financial performance. The figure is part of a total underspend of £10.4m, which also includes a £0.8m underspend on children‘s services and £2.3m on housing.

Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour group on Westminster council, told the Guardian’s social care network that the “significant underspend” was a result of the Conservative-controlled council introducing cuts, which should have been phased in over two years, more quickly.

Read More