Tag Archives: alzheimers

Passport to making life better for people living with dementia

August 17, 2015   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia, Featured Article, hospital

Carers are more than visitors:

they are part of the team that support a patient with dementia and frailty. Many of the hospitals that welcome carers issue them with passports to identify them and give them a tangible sense of their authority and recognition. These passports were the idea of Dr Sophie Edwards, consultant geriatrician at the North Middlesex Trust, who explains here why she felt them to be crucial.

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Dementia patients forced to rely on unpaid carers, poll says

July 6, 2015   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia, Featured Article, health

 

Three-quarters of GPs say their dementia patients are forced to rely on family, friends, neighbours or other unpaid carers, because they get insufficient help from health and social care services.

Stephen Blakeburn, 50, who cares for his mother, Jenny (left), 86, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2010. GPs believe dementia patients are being failed by health and social care services. Photograph: Alzheimer’s Society/PA Photograph: Alzheimer’s Society/PA

A survey of 1,013 family doctors by the Alzheimer’s Society paints a worrying picture of a situation in which patients are often let down or left confused by the health and social care system.

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How does your garden grow?

June 27, 2015   Alzheimer’s, Carers, Featured Article, health

John Jeffry, the Carers Garden, Brighton

‘I go out in the country sometimes and take cuttings, put them in rooting compound, then stick them in the ground. Sloes and things like that’

John Jeffry: ‘Coming here was a break. It gave me a bit of focus. I like the company.’ Photograph: Sophia Evans for the Guardian

You feel on top of the world up here – it makes everything else seem so small. The Carers Centre set up this allotment to give people a few hours break from caring each week. When I heard about it I really wanted to come but couldn’t because my wife Ellen had Alzheimer’s. When she went into a nursing home, it was hard, but coming here was a break. It gave me a bit of focus. I like the company.

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