Tag Archives: dementia

We need to talk about dementia – Dementia Awareness Week launches today

May 16, 2016   Carers, dementia, Featured Article, Norfolk

The numbers tell the story: almost two in every 100 people between 65 and 69 have dementia. Among those just 20 years older – 85 to 89 – that figure is one in five.

In Norfolk alone, up to 17,000 are affected. Over the next decade, that number is expected to double. It is a condition it is hard to escape.

Throughout Dementia Awareness Week, the EDP and Norwich Evening News will be highlighting ground-breaking research into the condition, focusing on how people can reduce their risk of developing it, and how our region can support those living with it.

Willie Cruickshank, director of the Norfolk and Suffolk Dementia Alliance, said the issue was one which should be a personal responsibility for every one of us.

“There is a reticence to talk about dementia but we need to start having these discussions,” he said.

Find out more

 

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Problems faced when caring for someone with Dementia

March 23, 2016   Carers, dementia, Featured Article
Guest blog by Rev Eric Lomax
I live in Lincolnshire, and my parents Valerie and Eric Lomax, are elderly, and live on the Wirral. My mother, Valerie has been steadily declining with Alzheimer’s, for the lat two years, and this has made life very difficult for my father. She would stand at the window and stare out at people, and then demand to go out, looking for her family. Often she would hit my father, while he was driving the car, even on the motorway, and demand that he stop the car. Alternatively, she would get out the passenger side at traffic lights, or bang on the window of other cars. This was dangerous, and I saw  a steady decline in his health as a result of this.
For him, there was constant anxiety over what care would cost, and the fear that he would lose the money he had invested in his home. There was a real lack of information out there, and when I eventually persuaded him to seek advice, institutions would randomly use terms like ‘you will have to pay for her,’ without qualifying that, or explaining what this meant. For this reason, he resolved to struggle on.
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Widowed grandmother, 93, is comforted after death of her husband of 70 years

March 14, 2016   Carers, dementia, Featured Article, Older care

When care home staff give her a cushion made from his favourite shirt

  • Joyce Beckett was distressed in the evenings after death of husband, John
  • Staff at care home noticed she liked to be with someone to hold their hand
  • Carer Chris Rayatt-Howard made her the special memory cushion
  • Mrs Beckett wept with happiness when she received the gift 

By Victoria Finan For Mailonline

Published: 12:15, 14 March 2016 | Updated: 14:48, 14 March 2016

A recently widowed grandmother wept with happiness after retirement home staff gave her a cushion made out of her late husband’s favourite shirt.

Joyce Beckett, 93, became distressed in the evenings after her husband of 70 years, John, died aged 91 on February 11.

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