On one of my other websites Living Beyond Dementia™, I have posted part of an article from The Radical Respite Project. Living beyond dementia is still not overly acceptable publicly, as the media still wants the stories of ‘tragedy and suffering’, and when people with dementia refuse to go home and die via aged care, they…
Firstly, thanks to @ML_Leaver for permission to use this image, and well done for the great hair colour supporting the gay marriage campaign by the team at Rock Retro Scissors in Adelaide! Prior to being diagnosed with dementia, I understood intellectually that some groups in our community were disadvantaged, and being treated unfairly, being discriminated and…
I’m often asked for a various lengths of my bio and this is one version I gave recently: Kate Swaffer is a published academic and author, an international speaker, an activist, and a dementia and aged care consultant; she is a retired nurse, has a Masters of Science in Dementia (Distinction, 2014), and is a…
Alone Crowded in by people Many of whom seem not to care Most who barely know me Too much noise Too many strange voices Too many different conversations Too many distractions Not able to keep up The beginning of confabulation Just to save face And maintain dignity Kate Swaffer © 2017
Kay Bransford, a long time virtual friend of mine wrote on her blog Dealing with dementia, in a post titled “Letting us in”; “I learned that once my mom was having cognitive issues, I couldn’t expect her to change. I had to change. We (my siblings and I) made life choices for her when she no…
If you like reading, have a look at this blog I follow, where a whole list of excellent reading has been listed, including good fiction, many of which I have read. I learned a lot of new titles of books too so if/when I get back to studies, they are on my list. There…
Over the voting period of my life, I’ve been a political swinger, and the last couple of years, had actually become a political atheist, even joining the Facebook group of that name! In my home state, I have now decided to support Dignity Party SA, and will write occasionally about why I have decided to…
Over the years, it has come to my attention that others speak about me as one of the #DementiaLanguagePolice. There are many of us around the world, and we constantly have to put up with being labelled sufferers of dementia, even when most of the time, we are more often suffering because of this label,…
Too often we worry about what others think of what we do or say, and too often people judge us on what we say, think or do. It’s time we all worried about the flowers AND weeds in our own ‘gardens’ and left others to their own.
Many of us with dementia really dislike the term respite; we also dislike the terms Day Centre or Day Care as that’s the place we took our three-year olds. Anyway, a friend Sarah Yeates and volunteer of DAI who is also the manager of the Caledonia Dementia Care recently asked me what I thought would be…
Our memories are often not reality, but rather what we have heard, or what we want to remember, and for those of us losing our memories, then our reality can change dramatically. For someone without dementia trying to understand our new reality, especially when it can change at any moment in time, must be one…
Yesterday I received an email from the University of Wollongong with the following media release about the ePAT App has now received regulatory clearance in Australia and for the European Economic Area (EAA). Below is the announcement that was placed on the ASX yesterday. As one of more than 50 million people living with dementia…
Well, I’ve realised my husband is right and I am probably an idiot as I book in too many meetings when we travel. Below is an updated itinerary as of today, as some meetings changed overnight, but who knows, if I can squeeze any more in, I’m sure I will find a way! We are…
Whilst this blog is not exactly a discussion on the new narrative of dementia, which is my current my #hottopic, this YouTube video sent to me by The Amazing Susan and makes it reasonably clear what I mean… and although it gave me a good laugh, it hits home exactly about what has been annoying…
Ok, so I know the word bugger Could be seen as crude But frankly, it is how I feel Yesterday I talked to my BUB Then I wondered where he was So I was frantically looking for him In our own home He was nowhere to be found So I called him on his mobile…
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