There have been few documentaries I’ve enjoyed as much as Channel 4’s ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’. For me it ticked every box – it featured some amazing older people (the oldest was 102) and pre-school children (the…
Tag: opportunity
The rainbow of dementia
This week will mark what would have been my dad’s 91st birthday, and later on in April, the 6th anniversary of his passing. These milestones have left me reflecting on the last 19 years of dad’s life, how dementia crept…
Do something new… and learn something new!
Welcome to the fourth of my seven blog posts for UK Dementia Awareness Week 2015. This year’s Dementia Awareness Week centres around the theme of doing something new for people with dementia, under the mantra that ‘Life doesn’t have to end when…
Reablement for people with dementia
As we approach Easter, a time associated with rebirth, new life, possibility and opportunity, I have found myself thinking about how this correlates with the experience of living with dementia. Historically, a diagnosis of dementia has been seen as a…
Does the world really stop?
There is a prevailing view that when someone is told that they have dementia, everything in their life must stop. If they were working or studying that must stop. They must stop driving. They stop being spoken to and start…
A sense of achievement
One of the most pervasive beliefs about dementia is that people living with it cannot achieve anything. For many the onset of living with dementia can signal the end of aspects of their life that represent the very foundations of…
Let’s talk about dementia – Surprises
Welcome to the third of my seven ‘mini’ blogs for UK Dementia Awareness Week 2013. They are all themed around talking about dementia, exploring different aspects of conversation from the point of view of people who are living with dementia, carers…
We are all individuals
Of all the buzz words and phrases around in health and social care at the moment, ‘person-centred care’ is arguably one of the most important. It might sound like a cross between trendy language and clichéd ideas, but there is…
My dementia wish list
Welcome to 2013, the beginning of another new year and no doubt another set of targets for the tick box culture in health and social care. 2013 promises to be an important time for dementia, with the need to build…