Tag Archives: mental health

60 per cent of carers felt guilty about sending relatives into a care home

Majority of carers feel guilty about putting relatives in care homes

Written byMARK MCKAY

MORE than half of carers feel guilty about putting loved ones into care, according to a shock new study.Research by disabled charity Vitalise, said 60 per cent of carers felt guilty about sending disabled, frail or elderly relatives into a care home.

The study comes just days after the Alzheimer’s Society revealed only four out of ten said relatives with dementia had a good quality of life while in care.

The curious incident of the toast in the night-time

Phyllida Law: my mother’s dementia had its funny side

By Elizabeth Grice

8:00AM GMT 23 Feb 2013

A life on the stage, and marriage to the writer of ‘The Magic Roundabout’, equipped Phyllida Law with a sense of humour. In a new book she takes a comic, yet moving, look at her mother’s dementia.

So much merriment courses through Phyllida Law’s account of looking after her demented mother, Meg, that some busybody from the mental health police is bound to object that she isn’t taking the subject seriously enough.

Many of their exchanges belong in an Alan Bennett play. “You haven’t got your distance glasses on, Mother,” shouts the actress as Mego, as she was known, a little unsteady and suffering from glaucoma, totters off for her morning walk, waving her stick. “Don’t worry, dear,” comes the reply. “I’m not going any distance.”

Then there is the curious incident of the toast in the night-time. Mego woke in the early hours, yodelling: “Yoo-hoo. Anyone home? What’s for breakfast?” “I slithered downstairs to tell her it was 3am,” Phyllida recalls. “She seemed to be fiddling with her radio, so I asked if she’d like it on. She said, no, she was just trying to make herself a piece of toast. Something made me lock the front door as I went back to bed.”

NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Cares

New mental health service for people in Cornwall

Friday, February 15, 2013

A new service has been set up to improve the mental health of people in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

BeMe is part of a national network of services known as ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ (IAPT).

NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly approved the new provider after a formal commissioning process at the end of 2012.

Neill Richardson, BeMe’s clinical lead, said his team offered a range of services to people experiencing anxiety and depression.