Welcome to my X, Y or Z Village

Over the last few years, the concept of Dementia Villages, Memory Cafes, Dementia specific shopping lanes, etc. has been growing, and worse, the villages are currently being lauded as ‘best practice’, in spite of there being NO evidence for them. Just like the Dementia Friendly Community or Dementia Friends initiatives, they were developed by people…

Lack of Evidence Based Research: BanBPSD

An an article published on October 2, 2018, Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia: GPs’ perspective on management highlighted to me on Twitter via Dubhgas Taylor, I want to highlight one of the problems we are facing. It reports on a ‘mixed-methods systematic review by Jennings and colleagues aimed to develop a better understanding of general practitioners’…

Rethinking Dementia: Normal Human Responses #10

I really love this quote, and felt it quite relevant to this blog series about the need to #BanBPSD. Fronteirs in Neurology state: “Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), also known as neuropsychiatric symptoms, represent a heterogeneous group of non-cognitive symptoms and behaviors occurring in subjects with dementia.” Thankfully, at least in my opinion, there…

Rethinking Dementia: 30 Normal Human Responses #6

World Awareness Month 2018 is well underway and #DAI continues to run their daily series of #Hello my name is blogs to raise awareness of dementia and to share our members stories However, this month, I am maintaining focus on my #BanBPSD blog series. Hence, I have put together the following list! Whatever we do, whoever…

Rethinking Dementia: Normal Human Responses #1

Rethinking Dementia Care by Banning BPSD For World Alzheimer’s Month this year, #WAM2018, I will be focusing on why I, and a growing number of others believe we need to Ban BPSD (the Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia). Six people, myself included wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Australian Journal of Dementia…

Open Letter to Gabriella Rogers and Channel 9

Urgent Attention: Gabriella Rogers and 9News This letter is in response to the entitled “New Drug to Treat Behavioural Issues in Dementia Patients”, publicised on Aug.18th 2018 at 6pm. “This report misrepresents both the facts and the real-world experiences of people living with dementia.  The report positions all behaviour, moods and reactions within the frame of a dementia diagnosis…

Living… or labelled by disease?

Perhaps it is a great idea, but surely, labelling where we live, shop or eat and have coffee by our disease or condition, is simply another form of keeping the myths alive, as well as ensuring a continued sense of ‘otherness’. It is definitely another form of segregation. And yet, the emergence of Dementia Villages, or…