Dementia

In a bid to ensure effective, coordinated, community-based support for people who have been diagnosed with dementia, a pioneering dementia advice centre has opened in Newcastle.

Designed to provide support and information services for people living with dementia, their families, friends and carers, the Centre, which is the first of its kind on Tyneside, is the result of a campaign led by North East specialist dementia charity, Dementia Matters. 

The Brunswick Village-based specialist day and residential care service provider has partnered with fellow North East charity, Newcastle Carers and sourced funding from The Ballinger Charitable Trust and the Lloyds Bank Foundation, to get the project up and running with additional support from local authorities and the NHS.

Poor acoustics in a building can have a detrimental impact on people with dementia. Here  we look at some of the effects of noise and how the sound environment can be improved.

How dementia and ageing affects our hearing

As we become older, our hearing is often affected as part of the ageing process  and we lose the ability to hear high frequency sounds. Childen can typically hear or sense sounds at 20,000 Hz, whereas many people aged 85 cannot hear 8,000 Hz and so have lost a huge part of their range of hearing. In a noisy environment it is difficult to pick out speech and understand conversation; this is isolating, increases anxiety and can become distressing.

A Chorley care village is welcoming an intake of volunteers to support its dementia friendly Market Square.

The newly recruited volunteers will be leading and assisting with activities, as well as providing support in the purpose-built facilities at Buckshaw Retirement Village, which includes a pub, café, pet shop and hair salon, and a dementia friendly 20-seater cinema. 

Husband and wife volunteers Peter and Patricia Baldwin will be helping with a range of new activities, including model building, group walks, women’s baking, knitting and flower arranging groups, which are part of a wider commitment to provide person centred activities, inclusive of all residents needs, as well as promoting the importance of physical and mental wellbeing.

Dementia UK’s Admiral Nurses provide an emotional and practical lifeline to families living with dementia. We sat down with Matthew Burns who works in and around Wakefield in conjunction with South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. We talked through his background, the families he supports and developments in post-diagnostic dementia care

•         Tell me a little bit about your background

The Gas Safety Trust (GST) has announced it will fund a piece of research looking at the impact of low level carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in older adults and its potential impact on cognitive function.

The research, to be carried out by Lancaster University and supported by the West Midlands and Merseyside Fire Services, will gather data on low levels of CO present in homes of older adults and screen their cognitive function and mental health. This research will assist in the understanding of whether low level and long term CO exposure can be a risk factor in neurological disorders such as dementia.

Ben Atkinson-Willes founded Active Minds, a company who design and create activities for people living with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Active Minds work with several care homes across UK and the NHS, Age UK and Bupa. We recently caught up with Ben to find out more about his journey and plans for the future…

The idea started back in 2008 when my grandfather had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for the past 10 years, and I decided to see what I could do to help support him.

Sunrise Senior Living and Gracewell Healthcare are celebrating after being named finalists in three categories at the prestigious National Dementia Care Awards 2017.

Sunrise of Eastbourne was shortlisted in two categories with Fiona White, the General Manager at Sunrise of Eastbourne, being named a finalist in the Inspiring Leader category in recognition of her ability to effectively support and motivate her team.

Sunrise of Eastbourne’s ‘Reminiscence Neighbourhood’ Team also earned their spot as a finalist in the Best Dementia Team category. 

By Jill Whittaker, managing director of Connect2Care, discusses how investing in apprentices can help improve dementia care

More than 500,000 people in the UK are currently thought to be living with dementia and this figure is rising year-on-year[1]. In fact, the number of people living with the illness is predicted to increase by an astounding 281% in 2050, compared to 2015 figures[2]. Despite the growing number of cases, it’s estimated that one in three care workers have received no formal dementia training[3].

Residents and staff at Camelot Care’s Freshfields Nursing Home in Plymouth are looking forward to taking part for the second time in the Archie Project, a scheme that links local schools with people with dementia in the community.

Part of Reminiscence Learning, a West Country-based charity that aims to promote, maintain and improve activity and education by working with people with dementia, the Archie Project is a unique intergenerational awareness-raising project created to reduce the stigma and fear associated with the word dementia.