Tag Archives: alzheimers

We get there early and find Dad's dementia worse

January 19, 2013   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia

As Dad struggles to lift his head, it’s clear how immobile he’s become since last time

 

Rebecca Ley with her dad, who has dementia.

The second time I visited Dad over Christmas was far less rosy than the first. It was Boxing Day but decorations at the home had already begun to wilt. And this time, instead of finding Dad sitting in the main room cleanly shaven, my husband and I are told he is still in his bedroom.

I walk down the corridor with trepidation. His bedroom scares me. While many of the residents have cosy rooms, personalised by their families with photographs, lamps and cushions, Dad’s is a barren, institutional space.

It’s not that we haven’t tried. When he first moved in, my mum and sisters took pictures and got a television mounted on the wall. But none of it lasted long. Dad’s habit of destroying things in the night meant that nothing was safe. Now there’s just an empty bracket where the TV was, and the walls are blank, save for pockmarks and the odd, unidentifiable smear.

The focus of the room is his bed, a hospital one with bars to stop him slipping out. And today he’s lying in it, his head tilted to the window and his bare torso only just covered by a sheet.

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Dementia patients going undiagnosed

January 17, 2013   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia

Half the people who have dementia have not been diagnosed

 

Published on Wednesday 16 January 2013 09:03

Latest figures reveal there are almost 5,500 living in central Lancashire who have dementia.

However, it is believed that around half the people who have dementia have not been diagnosed and are living with the disease without receiving the help and support they need.

The Alzheimer’s Society has revealed an increase in the number of people living with dementia with 42,000 people diagnosed with the condition – an increase of almost 4,000 since last year.

However, there are thought to be another 43,000 people living with the condition who have not been diagnosed yet.

In the central Lancashire area which includes Preston and surrounding areas, there were 2,544 diagnosed with dementia in 2012 compared to 2,313 in 2011.

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While our pensioners are living in poverty, should we really be sending more money abroad?

January 16, 2013   Alzheimer’s, Carers, charities, dementia, Older care

Funding the care for our vulnerable elderly is an issue of morality, not charity, writes Tracey Crouch

By Tracey Crouch

1:49PM GMT 15 Jan 2013

Last week, Parliament spent a full afternoon debating the extremely important issue of dementia. Colleagues from across the House spoke with real passion and emotion, sometimes based on personal experience, about a dreadful condition which in just a few years time will affect over a million people, or one in three of those aged over 65.

Most people will already know someone who has dementia or who will suffer from dementia in the future, and so how politicians deal with our ageing population and all the related issues that it brings is a real life electoral issue. People judge a government on its morality, and what can be more important than how we treat our vulnerable elderly?

It breaks my heart to hear about those in their retirement living in poverty. The Government has done the right thing to introduce the triple lock into pension increases, maintain the commitment to the winter fuel allowance and continue with cold weather payments. But with adult social care budgets being cut and a care funding crisis looming, so much more needs to be done, and it is time we recalibrated our spending priorities to ensure that taxpayers money, stretched as it is, goes into providing the services we need at home, not financing projects abroad.

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