You can learn to remember happily http://t.co/bZE23XOo - hope for boomers who might say if you can remember the 60s you weren't there...
250 days ago
Off to blabber on at the Kent Care Conf (I'd say speak, but that'd be both an over & an understatement) I'm looking forward to listening too
255 days ago
I've been saying it for ages. Now World Alz Rep says 27m people have undiagnosed dementia. Same in UK too. 750,000? Pah. Try doubling it.
255 days ago
This week I've been busy speaking about communicating with people with dementia at two dementia care conferences, one for Kent Care Homes Association and the other for Sussex NHS Specialist Dementia Care Service, Skills for Care and West Sussex County Council.
By way of introduction I told the story of Great-Auntie May, my father's aunt, who got dementia and was 'put' in a care home and who I never visited - my Mum said, "I think it would upset you too much, dear" and so I didn't. Of course my Mum meant it kindly, but it was a terrible thing not to visit her and I have felt pretty bad about it ever since.
There she is 3rd from the left in the line up of her sisters in 1948, complete with gigantic fur gloves and a faraway look in her eyes, my grandmother on her left and her beloved son Jim, later killed in a motorbike crash, standing behind.
It's amazing she wasn't wearing her fur coat which, along with a moustache and beard (ah, the days before laser hair removal) came to define her. looking at Lula's coat on the far right, I'm not at all sure that this wasn't it - perhaps she inherited it when Lula died, I am now wondering.
I LOVED Auntie May. She had a cracking sense of humour, dry as a bone. After Jim was killed, she was unable to settle anywhere for long and would come and stay with our family for a few weeks at a time. I never wanted her to leave. It was she who gave me my lifelong interest in older people. "Dear old Auntie May" my Dad would say affectionately to her, "Less, of the 'old', if you don't mind" would be her crisp straight-faced reply. I miss her.
This week I've been busy speaking about communicating with people with dementia at two dementia care conferences, one for Kent Care Homes Association and the other for Sussex NHS Specialist Dementia Care Service, Skills for Care and West Sussex County Council.
By way of introduction I told the story of Great-Auntie May, my father's aunt, who got dementia and was 'put' in a care home and who I never visited - my Mum said, "I think it would upset you too much, dear" and so I didn't. Of course my Mum meant it kindly, but it was a terrible thing not to visit her and I have felt pretty bad about it ever since.
There she is 3rd from the left in the line up of her sisters in 1948, complete with gigantic fur gloves and a faraway look in her eyes, my grandmother on her left and her beloved son Jim, later killed in a motorbike crash, standing behind.
It's amazing she wasn't wearing her fur coat which, along with a moustache and beard (ah, the days before laser hair removal) came to define her. looking at Lula's coat on the far right, I'm not at all sure that this wasn't it - perhaps she inherited it when Lula died, I am now wondering.
I LOVED Auntie May. She had a cracking sense of humour, dry as a bone. After Jim was killed, she was unable to settle anywhere for long and would come and stay with our family for a few weeks at a time. I never wanted her to leave. It was she who gave me my lifelong interest in older people. "Dear old Auntie May" my Dad would say affectionately to her, "Less, of the 'old', if you don't mind" would be her crisp straight-faced reply. I miss her.