Home uses TV classic This is Your Life to help dementia sufferers
Nancy McKeever with Anne Marson, a care worker at St Andrews Care Home, Uphall. Picture Ian Rutherford
By DAWN MORRISON
Published on Thursday 27 December 2012 12:00
Dementia sufferers at a Lothians care home are reliving their memories with the help of TV classic This is Your Life.
St Andrews Court Care Home in Uphall, West Lothian, has enlisted the help of friends, family and volunteers to create versions of the big Red Book, made famous by Eamonn Andrews and Michael Aspel.
The volumes are filled with photos, stories and other memorabilia which help take residents back in time.
Creating a physical record of important moments, feelings and experiences allows residents to enjoy their memories time and again, in spite of their illness, believes care home manager Helen McLeod.
Young carers: The added responsibility that Christmas brings
By Peter Coulter BBC News, Belfast
Christmas for young carers would be a very different experience to that of other children.
Young carers get together in east Belfast for a flower arranging class.Tidying the house, putting up decorations, cooking the turkey and washing up all those dishes, just some of the jobs they’ve had to do over the last few days.
These chores are normally seen as the parent’s job in many houses but for 8000 young carers across Northern Ireland, Christmas brings extra responsibility to support their families.
We met a group of young carers in east Belfast who are attending a flower arranging class, part of an initiative organised by local charity Crossroads.
The charity is running the workshops to not only give the young carers a bit of respite time but also teach them some vital skills.
In Northern Ireland approximately 8.5% of children act as a carer for another member of their family who may be ill or disabled, in many cases this can be a terminal or degenerative illness.
‘Difficult experience’
The Crossroads Young Carers project aims to provide them with support, social activities, practical help and respite.
Saffron and Jayashree Saffron Wallace and Jayashree Sugumaran enjoy coming to the young carers club.
For All I Care with Carers Gloucestershire chief executive Tim Poole
WELL, that’s Christmas then
WELL, that’s Christmas then. Everyone happy? I hope so and that there’s not too great a sense of anti-climax.
I have a colleague who claims that, very early into his childhood Christmas Day, his father always intoned, somewhat lugubriously: “Well, it’s as far away now as it ever was.”
Apparently, it was the ultimate remedy for Christmas cheer.
Then there’s New Year, which I suppose is all about change – not everyone’s strong suit. Mind you, these days there’s not so much remembering-the-correct-year-on-cheques any more.
