dementia

Leave a comment Posted on May 16, 2015May 15, 2015 Alzheimer's

Dementia Awareness Week 2015 – share to show your support for the Alzheimer’s community #DoSomethingNew

Dementia Awareness Week

Tomorrow (Sunday 18th May 2015) sees the first day of Dementia Awareness Week.

PatientTalk.Org are delighted to once again throw our digital wight behind this important event! For a great overview of dementia please check out our interview with Dr Nori Graham who is Medical Director of Red and Yellow Care, Vice President of Alzheimer’s Disease International and The Alzheimer’s Society.

The Alzheimer’s Society have developed five key informational points that they wish to promote this Dementia Awareness Week.

Dementia is not a natural part of ageing

Dementia is more common among older people , and some of us do become more forgetful as we get older, during times of stress or, in fact, illness. But dementia is a very different sort of forgetfulness. Your memory loss will be very noticeable, and may be accompanied by mood changes and confusion/brain fog. It’s important to ask your doctor to check out any unusual symptoms as these can sometimes be treated quite easily.

Dementia is caused by diseases of the brain

Dementia is the name for a Syndrome (collection of symptoms) that includes memory loss, mood changes/brain fog and problems with communication and rational thought. These symptoms are brought about by a number of diseases that affect the brain. The most common of these is Alzheimer’s disease, which causes the brain cells to die. Other types of dementia include vascular dementia and Pick’s disease.

It’s not just about losing your memory

People often think of dementia as a form of memory loss. And that is often true in the first instance. But it’s more than that – it can also affect the way people think, speak, perceive things, feel and behave. Dementia makes it harder to communicate and do everyday things, but there is a lot that can be done to help.

It’s possible to live well with dementia

Many people with dementia continue to drive, socialise and hold down satisfying jobs. Even as dementia progresses, many people lead active, healthy lives, continue their hobbies, and enjoy loving friendships and relationships. Of course dementia does make it harder to do certain things, but it is possible for someone with dementia to get the very best out of life.

There’s more to a person than the dementia

When someone is diagnosed, their plans for the future might change and they may need more help and support to keep doing the things they enjoy – but dementia doesn’t change who they are. Where there is life there is hope.

Leave a comment Posted on February 19, 2015February 18, 2015 Mental health, Patient Talk

Please Hear What I’m Not Saying – A wonderful poem performed in Paul Wiggins which helps spread mental health awareness in the NHS

A couple of days ago Paul Wiggins got in touch asking if we would share this video which is used as part of county-wide the UK’s NHS training for staff working in mental health.

Paul shares “This Derbyshire video has inspired people associated with Inside Out Of Mind, namely the

Paul Wiggins

producers of the show, Derby Theatre officers (calling it ‘wonderful’), Justine Schneider of Nottingham University, ‘(inspiring’), the managers of the play and Shoina Powell and her team at Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham.

The poem has touched many people’s lives and speaks with great compassion and insight into the human condition. It’s a reminder to us all particularly those who have a role in listening to others including pastoral visitors. Indeed the poem speaks powerfully of significant realities and truths, to which so many of us remain insensitively dismissive and embodies aspects of compassion focused
therapy.

Seemingly the poem will continue to resonate with charities and organisations, particularly with cases of dementia likely to double by 2040.”

Leave a comment Posted on February 11, 2015 Autism, Patient Talk

Decoding My Autism — Custom Books Why? Goal? Future? A guest blog about a brilliant autism resource from Angie & Chris Bayne

Decoding My Autism

Why we do this?

My son was diagnosed with Autism when he was 8. I was trying to explain Autism and the spectrum to my husband. He was having a hard time understanding, and knowing that my husband works with computers I said to him, “Think of your MP3 player, your phone, and tablets. They are all different operating systems, you have to program them differently. Our son learns on a different operating system.” After thinking about it for a minute he then asked, “Well, why can’t his operating system come with a manual or a book?” One with just his symptoms and a guide how to understand him.” That is how this book came to be.

… I have a different operating system. Different but not inferior.

What is our Goal? How we are achieving our Goals.

In the gap of time between testing and receiving your official diagnosis you will have a lot of questions. In this period endless, stressful time you will go online and read everything you can find on Autism. Between my wife and I we read at least 100 books and articles on the subject. These books were great and helped us to better understand but most had general information, not specifics to our child. This is where our idea is a little different, we have taken the basics, personalized it, and put the information into a very easy to understand handbook. I jokingly said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a book of everything someone else needed to know about our son, without preconceived ideas. A handbook.” My wife didn’t say “No”! So, after a lot of consideration, we came up with this basic concept:

Go to the website: www.decodingmyautism.com

Pick the cover.
Pick the pages that you want in your book.
Your custom book will be put together.

If you decide you want something more customized, or want the model changed to look like your child, we have packages. (Based on Availability of Artist). We can customize anything and want to add more available pages as we go on. We use 3D modeling to help make sure that our pages are as informative and respectful as possible.

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Think of yourself taking your child to the park on a perfect day. Everybody is happy and in a good mood. If you as parents left your child with another fully qualified adult that understood everything about Autism, but didn’t know your child specifically. What 10 things would they need to know to watch your child for 1 to 2 hours? What are some of the responses and triggers that could cause a pleasant afternoon to turn into a meltdown?

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This is the perfect book to give to a coach or social leader that can be quickly read or referenced with little effort.

We are committed to making these books as complete as possible. We know this works because we have used this book in our own life. We want to thank PatientTalk for allowing us do a guest blog, and get our message out to all of you. All pre-sales are going toward improvements on the book, also adding more pages. We currently have 16 pages to choose from, and plan to add more in the near future. During development we hope to use our blog at http://blog.decodingmyautism.com to get suggestions from the communities and make sure we can cover what is needed more completely.

We know that children may have multiple diagnosis so we are plan to launch “Decoding My ADHD” as soon as funds become available. We believe this can help not just our community but also other communities that have some of the same needs. Another book we are looking to do is “Decoding My Dementia”. We believe if a picture is worth 1000 words, then we should be able to condense down symptoms to their most basic picture to make sure all levels can consume this information as needed.

Thank You:

Angie & Chris Bayne

Support@decodingmyautism.com

http://www.decodingmyautism.com

http://blog.decoidngmyautism.com

Leave a comment Posted on January 19, 2015 Alzheimer's

‘Inside out of Mind: welcome to the ward with no name’ – how a new play is helping improve care for people with dementia

Dementia and the theatre

Leicester Hospitals are sending their staff to the theatre to see a play called ‘Inside out of Mind: welcome to the ward with no name’, in order to improve their understanding of the needs of people with dementia such as Alzheimer’s.

“Inside out of mind” has been produced by the University of Nottingham, Institute of Mental Health, Leicester Hospital’s say “The project involved knowledge exchange between the arts, social sciences and healthcare providers around the theme of dementia care; an issue that presents emotional, ethical and economic challenges for all of us.”

The play is being shown in a number of venues across the country, finishing at Leicester’s Curve Theatre from Tuesday 24 – Friday 27 March 2015. Certain showings have been earmarked for NHS staff, though tickets are available for the general public too. To find out more check out the web site here.

It focuses on a single day on a dementia care ward – taking advantage of two different perspectives. The first half illustrates patients’ interpretations of care and the environment, and the second focuses on the observations and feelings of staff.

Health Care Assistants will take the majority of seats, with the rest taken up by a mix of other healthcare staff from Leicester’s Hospitals.

Martyn Deighton, dementia awareness lead for Leicester’s Hospitals, said: “This is an exciting opportunity not to be missed. The play will complement other training we currently provide in dementia awareness.”

“Already about a quarter of all our inpatients have dementia and we know that this will increase as people are living longer. We are always looking for ways to improve care and the experience of our patients while they are with us. This play will help us do just that.”

In addition to seeing the play, there will be the chance to further enhance the experience and opportunities for learning by participating in a workshop at Curve straight after the shows.

1 Comment Posted on September 24, 2014 Alzheimer's, Patient Talk

Could a memory wall and a memory box help people with dementia? Find out about the simple but brilliant idea here.

People with dementia

A UK hospital has just announced that it has opened what it calls a “memory wall ” as a way of helping people with dementia such as Alzheimer’s.

On the face of it it seems a brilliant idea and I would be very interested in finding out what our readers thought about the memory wall! You may also find this interview with Dr Nori Graham who is Medical Director of Red and Yellow Care, Vice President of Alzheimer’s Disease International and The Alzheimer’s Society a useful introduction to the whole area of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

The wall contains a selection of old photographs which have been donated by the Leicester Mercury is at Glenfield Hospital’s ward 33a. The pictures are on display for patients’ enjoyment as they move around the cardiology ward.

Vanessa Struthers, who is ward clerk for Leicester’s Hospitals for 23 years, came up with the idea. She said: “It started off with old photos of Leicestershire but as the collection has grown, we’ve included iconic photos from key historical events, such as the Queen’s visit to Leicester.”

Struthers worked with people on the ward to create the display, which aims to help those admitted to the ward. She commented : “We thought it was important that our patients chose the pictures, so the wall is made up of their memories. It’s really fascinating to see all these wonderful pictures on display in one single place.”

Thanks to a kind donation from the family of a former patient, the team at Glenfield have also been able to purchase a memory box. It contains various items from days gone by, which are recognisable through touch or smell, such as carbolic soap, moth balls and a dolly peg.

Using memory boxes with elderly patients has been shown to help stimulate and focus their minds as they have very vivid memories of their past, but can struggle to retain short term memories due to Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Struthers said : “We have had a fantastic response to both the memory wall and the box. We are so grateful for the donations which have enabled us to provide these for our patients.”