Tag Archives: Older care
We should have our own Dementiaville
Dementiaville, or Hogewey, as it’s actually called, was started 20 years ago a short distance from Amsterdam
Miriam Stoppard
I ’m putting my family on notice: when I start dwindling into dementia I want them to put me into “Dementiaville”, the experimental village complete with supermarket, hairdresser, pub and theatre in the Netherlands.
Trained staff and carers are disguised as waitresses, hairdressers, barmen and barmaids, friends and extended family members. Not for me those soulless hospital wards where 15 to 20 people sit motionless and expressionless watching TV, the monotony only relieved by meals and medication.
That’s not living. It’s a kind of dying. And we’re committing almost a million people with dementia a year to this living death. What surprises me is that as a medical profession, as a government and as a society, we stand by and allow this horrible state of affairs to continue.
Dementiaville, or Hogewey, as it’s actually called, was started 20 years ago a short distance from Amsterdam by a woman and five other founder members who were determined to give patients with dementia a decent life.
WHO calls for a rethink of conventional definitions of what it means to be ‘old’
Good health adds life to years
Edited by Jane Hill editor@wellbeingnorfolk.co.uk
On World Health Day [7 April], the World Health Organization [WHO] is calling for urgent action to ensure that, at a time when the world’s population is ageing rapidly, people reach old age in the best possible health.
In the next few years, for the first time, there will be more people in the world aged over 60 than children aged less than five. By 2050, 80 per cent of the world’s older people will be living in low– and middle–income countries.
The main health challenges for older people everywhere are non–communicable diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and lung disease.
Making sure your online doctor will always have time to see you
Last month, the care minister Paul Burstow claimed that within five years 3m patients could be consulting their doctor and managing their health conditions online.
9:42PM BST 31 Mar 2012
After a Government-funded study last year found that so-called “telehealth” or “telemedicine” could dramatically cut deaths and emergency admissions, politicians are aiming to save lives – and money – by ensuring patients suffering from illnesses such as heart or lung conditions can monitor their illness at home.
Accelerated adoption of telehealth should prove beneficial for the likes of Tunstall, a Yorkshire-based business that provides telemedicine technology and services. Many other mid-sized businesses could also flourish in this area, as the NHS looks to the private sector for solutions.
