In the last few days, someone asked me for this list/graphic of a power point slide I have of it, but I cannot find my notes, nor remember who, hence I am reposting it here today. Please feel free to download it and share it, but also reference it to me. Thanks. And I hope…
Today is Mental health day, started 15 years ago, and whilst not necessarily something to celebrate, it is positive that we are talking about and thinking about mental health as almost everyone has been impacted by mental health issues personally, or someone they know has. As dementia comes under the umbrella of mental health at…
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull is now only in my thoughts rather than hanging in my office, although I do have a photograph of him on my computer desktop and phone wallpaper. This year, more than ever before, I have relied on my seagull Jonathon, or at least the meaning of what he stands for, and I miss his…
When I was 15 years old, I was elected as a school Captain, and that year wrote an essay titled “Girls and women as leaders: from Rhetoric to Reality.” I had probably read the term ‘Rhetoric to Reality’ somewhere in my readings, as back then I read many books each week for pleasure, as well…
Most years, I am more than frenetic throughout September, ensuring Dementia Alliance International (DAI) has blog content to post for every day of World Alzheimer’s Month also know as Dementia Awareness Month, and blog content to post here every day. For all sorts of reasons, including health, that has not been possible. I have certainly been wondering,…
Ok, so maybe I’ve got it wrong (again or still!), but surely focusing on what people without dementia think dementia might be like and spending vast amounts of money on virtual reality products to show more people without dementia what it is like for us seems a little off base to me. One or two…
Ok, I’ve been a bit quieter than usual lately here, but I have had reason to be. On Monday of last week in the early evening, I missed the top step of our stairs at home, pictured here. Although I usually use a walking stick, or hold the hand rails when I am out, often…
This is a Seminar you can attend in person (limited spaces), or attend as a Webinar online, the first Dementia Alliance International event, being co-hosted with the Dementia Advocacy Awareness Team in Brisbane, and supported by BlueCare: Live life your way. Register here… You can also download the flyer below.
It was a day of interesting opportunities and challenges having a film crew in my house (sometime earlier this or last year – I can’t remember as I started writing this blog the day after). The denial bubble we prefer to live in disappeared that day, as we had to focus on what it is…
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…
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…
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,…
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