It is Day 9 of Dementia Awareness Month 2015, or Alzheimer’s Awareness Month as it is technically called and Trademarked. As Alzheimer’s Disease is simply one of more than 130 types or causes of a dementia, many people with dementia, prefer to call it Dementia Awareness Month; we hope that one day, organisations will do the same.…
Yearning for life before dementia Never to return At least, not until I die But I say to myself Each and every single day There is no need to die now The sadness stalks me Tempting me to give in to dementia Hiding in the recesses of my mind Telling me to stop paddling To…
For Day 6 of Dementia Awareness Month 2015, I thought I’d move on a little from the theme of women and dementia, to a broader look at dementia, and the impact on our families. After all, I’d hate to be called sexist! The impact of dementia goes way beyond the person diagnosed, and for women…
Continuing on with my self-imposed theme for week one of Dementia Awareness month 2015, women and dementia, I thought it was important to write about the women who are in caring roles for people with dementia. The research clearly shows the care partners of someone living with dementia are mostly women, and even though women also are diagnosed at a much higher rate than…
Today’s blog is more personal and my rambling thoughts about my perspective as a wife and mother, of what it is like living with dementia, and the impact it has on me in those roles, and on my husband and children. When I was first diagnosed, the thought of not being there to see weddings, grandchildren,…
I’ve been following this blog Dementia, Caregiving and Life in General written by the daughter of a woman with Alzheimer’s Disease for a few years now, and her blog today has started me thinking again about forgetfulness. The last line of her blog, Forgotten, in a manner says: “I think I can accept being forgotten. It’s the forgetting I’d rather not…
Fear Diagnosed with dementia Too often brings us intense fear Worry for our future Our losses Then Loss of reason Inability to think clearly Leaving us immobile Or raging In fight or Flight Or somewhere in between Nightmares and worrying Tempting us to give in To give up Don’t let fear cripple you Find a way, any way…
Worrying is normal for the person living alongside a person with dementia, and as a family care partner or support person for a few people who have died from dementia I understand too well how difficult it is not to worry. When you love someone, and they are sick or troubled, not only do you…
I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed, and in fact, like giving up blogging, FB, twitter and all of my advocacy. As usual, if one shuts up long enough to listen, the universe supports, and today I received some very sage advice: “… honestly sometimes I think that with people with dementia that unless you give them specific things to complete,…
This is not rocket science, and the organisations promoting the dementia friends messages and campaigns, need to start within so they are walking their own talk. There is not need to ‘sign up’ to anything, just start… Take baby steps. They are not expensive and in fact, many cost no money at all, but they can make a…
One of the myths of dementia is that people diagnosed with it can’t live well after the diagnosis, and the concept of maintaining a pre diagnosis life is not possible. However, ADI’s Global Charter states: I can live well with dementia. But the problem with that, is nobody, no organisations, no service providers, no doctors, no…
Thank you Mick Carmody for inspiring me today with this wonderful poem, Inability to ACT. After hosting and contributing at the online Tribute to Richard Taylor today, I am too emotionally exhausted to publish anything of my own, and this poem, which I know was a tribute to Richard, says it all for me today. This is…
This is my fourth blog on the disgraceful AFR debacle, but as they have not yet responded appropriately, I felt like writing about it again. It seems the AFR simply refuses to engage in full and open conversation about their lapse in judgement earlier this year, and have chosen to ignore those of us who have made…
Australia, and many other countries have until recently had no national guidelines for the post diagnostic support of people with dementia, which I see as more than a failing, but as unethical. However it is encouraging to be able to report that the national clinical guidelines recently drafted went out to the public for comment before they are to be finalised, hopefully by…
As I have mentioned many times since being diagnosed with dementia, I am living as if it is the Olympics of my life, and use a large number of non pharmacological and positive psychosocial interventions that have not only increased my sense of well being, they have, I believe, slowed the deterioration of dementia, and…
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