Dealing With Dementia

Side by Side to combat dementia in Cornwall
By Western Morning News | Posted: May 17, 2017

A project in Cornwall is helping combat loneliness experience by people with dementia.
Side by Side, which is run by the charity, Alzheimer's Society, matches volunteers and people who have dementia, based on shared interests.
Helpers give up what time they can spare to accompany the dementia partner on activities ranging from football matches, strolls and garden centre visits to simply having a chat over a cup of tea or on the phone.

"I am currently supporting a person to play bowls every week," said one volunteer, who asked only to be named as Lesley. "This is a hobby they love but gave up many years ago. They decided to restart it with my help as a volunteer through Side by Side."

She said that the training given by Alzheimer's Society and the experience of supporting somebody made her feel fulfilled and more confident.
"I have enjoyed everything about volunteering, but I especially enjoy seeing the person's smile when I see them at the start of our time together and their laughter and enjoyment whilst sharing their activity is a wonderful thing," said Lesley.

In Devon, combating isolation is a key aim of Plymouth Dementia Action Alliance (PDAA) which involves more than 60 organisations and businesses working together. The pioneering initiative has attracted interest from other countries including China, Japan and Italy and led to Plymouth being named the Dementia Friendly City of the Year in 2016.

Outside the city, five parishes around the Yealm river have come together to improve the lives of people with dementia and their carers.

etc...

http://www.cornwalllive.com/side-by...-in-cornwall/story-30339220-detail/story.html
 
There has always been some awareness of the dangers of heading balls with odd people being referred to as 2head the ball".

Sue Lopez, 74, was the first British woman to play semi-professionally abroad and represented England 22 times during a career spanning three decades.

She said she wanted young footballers to stop heading the ball amid research suggesting women concussed more easily.

The FA said there was not enough evidence to change the game's rules.

Lopez, who spent the majority of her playing career at Southampton and spent a season at Roma, told the BBC she felt "sick" when she was given her diagnosis in 2018. She said heading the ball resulted in her suffering several concussions during her time competing at the top level between 1966 and 1985.

"I think my dementia has been caused by the heading of a football," added Lopez, who was made an MBE in 2000 for services to women's football.

"I'm always hoping people are being more careful now, not letting young kids head the ball."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-51139169
 
ramonmercado said:
There has always been some awareness of the dangers of heading balls with odd people being referred to as 2head the ball".

Sue Lopez, 74, was the first British woman to play semi-professionally abroad and represented England 22 times during a career spanning three decades.

She said she wanted young footballers to stop heading the ball amid research suggesting women concussed more easily.

The FA said there was not enough evidence to change the game's rules.

Lopez, who spent the majority of her playing career at Southampton and spent a season at Roma, told the BBC she felt "sick" when she was given her diagnosis in 2018. She said heading the ball resulted in her suffering several concussions during her time competing at the top level between 1966 and 1985.

"I think my dementia has been caused by the heading of a football," added Lopez, who was made an MBE in 2000 for services to women's football.

"I'm always hoping people are being more careful now, not letting young kids head the ball."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-51139169
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Some action being taken.

Primary-age children have been banned from heading the ball in new guidelines issued by the football associations in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Heading restrictions for all age groups under 18 were also announced with a graduated use between 12 and 16.

The guidance, which will not yet apply in Wales, will affect training only.

It follows Glasgow University research that showed former footballers were three-and-a-half times more likely to die from brain disease.

The Football Association of Wales said its guidance on children heading the ball was currently under review with the findings being made available later this year.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-51614088
 
ramonmercado said:
Primary-age children have been banned from heading the ball in new guidelines issued by the football associations in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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So kids are to be dissuaded from the jubilation of playing 'headers keepy-uppy', from rebounds against a brick wall, forever trying to beat your best score.

The ebullient experience of a soaking wet Mouldmaster, descending from the heavens with the mass of a small asteroid, amidst cries of, 'heider it!'.

Yea, OK, can appreciate the reasoning.

However, not convinced - at that age, I headed more footballs than most kids!

Screenshot_20200225_101323_compress94.jpg
 
Comfortably Numb said:
However, not convinced - at that age, I headed more footballs than most kids!
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Maybe it shows!
There's still time. Not joking now, the point is that the damage may be done long before the effects appear, as with many other aspects of our lifestyles.

We're only seeing the end of the process and don't know how much of the damage is done early on.
Are repeated light blows to the head more dangerous to a developing brain than the occasional heavy impact?
Is the effect cumulative or not?
Is there a safe level of 'heading'?

Nobody knows.
 
escargot said:
Is the effect cumulative or not?
Is there a safe level of 'heading'?

Nobody knows.
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I'm actually quite interested in this and intend to have a detailed look at the research.

Must surely be an extraordinarily, challenging issue to quantify.

You added, "Maybe it shows!".

:mad:

Well I can assure, it's ever done harm any me...

:crazy:
 
Comfortably Numb said:
I'm actually quite interested in this and intend to have a detailed look at the research.

Must surely be an extraordinarily, challenging issue to quantify.

You added, "Maybe it shows!".

:mad:

Well I can assure, it's ever done harm any me...

:crazy:
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There's a Times article about it today, very interesting.
 
Supernova: The dying of the light, in this film astronomy is used as an apposite metaphor for Dementia, I remember a poem which likened it to a Systems Crash. Stanley Tucci is a writer and amateur astronomer who is suffering from Early Onset Dementia, the film studies the effect of this not just on him but his devoted partner Colin Firth. They set off together, perhaps for the last time, on a journey to visit loved spots in the Lakelands and to meet up with old friends. It is a bitter sweet odyssey as Tucci retains his acerbic sense of humour even as he forgets little things and sometimes wanders off. A loving drama which at times is dark but beautifully portrays a love which has lasted for decades. Great performances by Tucci and Firth with stunning shots of the countryside, valleys and lakes, long twisting roads, starlight by night. At 93 minutes it seems far too short. Written & Directed by Harry Mcqueen. 8/10.
 
Diseases of the mind is worse than a nightmare.

Our parents have been gone for several years, but my wife’s mom had a bad time of it

Toward the end of her life, she thought she was back in WWII when she was serving as an Army WAC.

In the end she knew no family members, but strangely kinda woke up a few days before she died and did recognize family members.

So bizarre.
 
charliebrown said:
Diseases of the mind is worse than a nightmare.

Our parents have been gone for several years, but my wife’s mom had a bad time of it

Toward the end of her life, she thought she was back in WWII when she was serving as an Army WAC.

In the end she knew no family members, but strangely kinda woke up a few days before she died and did recognize family members.

So bizarre.
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Not uncommon and a way for people to either say goodbye or just enjoy being themselves again for a while until the end.

It's weird but pretty cool and if you know anyone who is dying who has gone through that then they are pretty lucky.
 
I really have some demons of past events that happened a long time ago that can haunt me.

I really don’t know how military men deal with their war service when they return home.
 
charliebrown said:
I really have some demons of past events that happened a long time ago that can haunt me.

I really don’t know how military men deal with their war service when they return home.
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I too have demons of the paat that will always haunt me, i have have numerous suicide attempts, i have spent quite a few years in prison for things that i will always be ashamed of, i look back on my past with regret and sadness most days, but i always look forward, i learnt a long time ago that the past has happened, no matter how much you wish you could go back and change things, you cant, you have to accept the choices you made in the past and learn from them, to dwell on what you should have done is a fools errand, accept the past and move on, the future is what you make it, the past is history.
 
Souleater said:
Probably said too much about myself but hey, shit happens.
Note to self, dont post personal stuff when drunk :hahazebs:
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For those of us who are drunk when we read it, it seems just fine! (Everyone has stuff in their past which they regret, or should regret. Some are oblivious and so never do better.)
 
When my daughter was a student, she kept a book of quotable quotes.
One that was particularly relevant to me and my lifetime of mistakes was....
"Maybe the sole purpose of your existence is to act as a warning to others." :)
 
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Recycled1 said:
When my daughter was a student, she kept a book of quotable quotes.
One that was particularly relevant to me and my lifetime of mistakes was....
"Maybe the sole purpose of your existance is to act as a warning to others." :)
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I should really get a tattoo of that quote, but it might be yet another mistake!
 
Recycled1: "Maybe the sole purpose of your existance is to act as a warning to others."
GNC: I should really get a tattoo of that quote, but it might be yet another mistake!
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It certainly would be if you were to preserve the misspelling.

This would make it self-referential ... The misspelling is an example of a mistake, and a mistake is a warning (by example) to others.
 
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escargot said:
Taking in a relation with dementia isn't necessarily the best thing for them. The condition is usually progressive and their behaviour and need for support can be challenging, and their health can deteriorate quite frighteningly quickly.

The stress of worrying about elderly family members can put a terrible strain on relationships too, whether or not the person is living with a couple. I have both personal and professional experience of this.

An elderly relation of ours has recently moved into a care home because she just wasn't safe living on her own and we couldn't have coped with her.

She took a few weeks to settle in but now she sits and watches TV with her new friends, who she thinks are old friends!
There are lovely meals and snacks to suit every appetite and hot and cold drinks on tap.

Best of all, we know she is safe, and she can wander around the home freely. Some people with dementia like to walk and walk, up and down corridors and in and out of lounges, and they couldn't do that safely at home.

So if you're in the position of having to deal with this, get some proper advice and ask lots of questions, and try not to stress too much.

You could also pm me if you're really desperate. I don't know everything but I might be able to help. ;)
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We sold our house so we could rent somewhere bigger and look after my mother in law. At that time she was fine mentally but getting a bit physically frail. Her dementia became apparent after a few months at the new house, it’s main manifestation was geriatric anorexia. She played all the tricks that are associated with anorexics, she blocked the toilet by flushing food down it, she made the dog ill by giving it her food, my wife would go to put her washing in the chest of drawers in the mil’s flatlet and fine plates of mouldy food hidden there.



My wife took the brunt of this as I was out at work, she found it incredibly hard to comprehend what was happening. They’d been like sisters, Thelma had been a very intelligent, sharp and funny woman and was now, in my wife’s perception turning into this devious creature who couldn’t be trusted. In the end she was put into a really nice care home but they couldn’t break her eating problems and she succumbed to pneumonia weighing around five stones.



Yes with hindsight we’d do it differently but then hindsight is a marvelous thing.
 
Mouldy13 said:
We sold our house so we could rent somewhere bigger and look after my mother in law. At that time she was fine mentally but getting a bit physically frail. Her dementia became apparent after a few months at the new house, it’s main manifestation was geriatric anorexia. She played all the tricks that are associated with anorexics, she blocked the toilet by flushing food down it, she made the dog ill by giving it her food, my wife would go to put her washing in the chest of drawers in the mil’s flatlet and fine plates of mouldy food hidden there.



My wife took the brunt of this as I was out at work, she found it incredibly hard to comprehend what was happening. They’d been like sisters, Thelma had been a very intelligent, sharp and funny woman and was now, in my wife’s perception turning into this devious creature who couldn’t be trusted. In the end she was put into a really nice care home but they couldn’t break her eating problems and she succumbed to pneumonia weighing around five stones.



Yes with hindsight we’d do it differently but then hindsight is a marvelous thing.
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Nobody knows how their relations' old age will pan out.

We can do everything in the world for them but we can't defeat dementia. Not even the best minds in the world can do that.
 
Some good news.

People who consume more foods rich in flavonoids, such as berries, tea, red wine and dark chocolate, could lower their risk of dementia, new research has found.

Led by a team of researchers at Queen's University Belfast, the study reported that increasing the intake of flavonoid-rich foods and drinks could help reduce the risk of developing the incurable illness by 28%.

At present, there are around 55,000 people in Ireland living with a form of dementia. This figure is projected to rise to 141,000 people by 2040.
While age and genetics contribute substantially to the development of the disease, the researchers said evidence has shown that risk factors such as diet can play an important role in prevention.

The study said that flavonoids, primarily found in plant foods, have a range of health benefits, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.

They have also been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, as well as improved cognitive function

The study published in JAMA Network Open and led by Professor Aedin Cassidy, Co-Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's said: "The worldwide prevalence of dementia continues to increase rapidly.

"In this population-based cohort study, we analysed dietary data from over 120,000 adults aged between 40 and 70 years from the UK Biobank.

"Our findings show that consuming six additional servings of flavonoid-rich foods per day, in particular berries, tea and red wine, was associated with a 28% lower risk of dementia.

"The findings were most noticeable in individuals with a high genetic risk as well as those with symptoms of depression." . ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41477533.html
 
escargot said:
Famous people with dementia -

Timothy West reveals Prunella Scales’ “painful” battle with dementiahttp://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014...-prunella-scales-painful-battle-with-dementia
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“When you think back over a long period and you think: this person that I’ve loved…doesn’t really exist any more, it’s another person – that’s quite painful. But you mustn’t think like that. You must just take it from day-to-day and you just notice how much she’s able to do and how much she enjoys life.”
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“Her sense of humour is still there,” he continues. “And we have a lot of fun. She’s just growing old in a certain area more quickly than either of us would like.”
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Timothy West died recently at the age of 90. I hadn't expected him to go first, although it can happen when the strain of caring for a spouse with dementia or a severe disability is very great. The couple seem to have had good support though.

He looked after Prunella very well and they still appeared on TV together until her condition became too serious. I suspect her mobility had deteriorated to the point where she wasn't safe on the boats.

While West's death is very sad for the family, Prunella will still be cared for and, dare I say it, may not even miss him.

When I worked with elderly people who'd forgotten their spouses had died we'd have a reply ready for them, worked out with their family's agreement, along the lines of 'He's popped out and will see you in the morning.' The exact words had to be used every time.

If Prunella asks she might be told some boating line like 'He's gone ahead to check the berth for you.'

Brought a tear to my own eye with that. :(

What a sweet couple they were.
 
escargot said:
When I worked with elderly people who'd forgotten their spouses had died we'd have a reply ready for them, worked out with their family's agreement, along the lines of 'He's popped out and will see you in the morning.' The exact words had to be used every time.

If Prunella asks she might be told some boating line like 'He's gone ahead to check the berth for you.'

Brought a tear to my own eye with that. :(
Click to expand...

We used per's gone ahead... freighted with meaniing that.
 
This is not a subject on which I have any breadth of knowledge, although I do have some direct experience with my grandmother, who died a couple of years ago after an inexorable decline. I spoke to no doctors on the matter, read no literature, and was guided wholly by the experience itself and some advice from my mother.

I am interested in the reason(s) behind the seeming reversion to childhood I witnessed as dementia ran its course.

Towards the end she had forgotten my grandfather, her late husband, who pre-deceased her by over a decade, and only reliably recognised my mother (her eldest daughter) and me (her eldest grandson).

Some of the time her mind seemed not to be temporally located anywhere in particular, rationally responding to stimuli in real-time, but hampered by a massively compromised short-term memory; at other times, she would report 'recent' meetings with her mother and father and talk of places I had (and have) never been. I was unable to discern whether these memories were bubbling to the surface while she was awake or in dreams at night.

I recall particularly being told multiple times that she had visited her mother, who was sick, and that she'd been in the upstairs bedroom with the window overlooking the park. Apparently, from there she had seen the ladies in their hats going into church, some with infants in their arms.

I could speculate that those memories that are oldest have a greater chance of having been reinforced a great many times over the years by repeated recollection and processing—in the same way that although my daughter cannot now recall getting lost in a giant bookshop at the age of four, she can recall being told the story multiple times and has revisited the shop itself a few times since.

It's interesting though that unless my grandmother attached more psychological significance to the kind of memory I describe above than I realise, the recollections she mentioned to me never pertained to the sort of major life events one might imagine would be the most revisited and (hence) deep-seated.

On the other hand, I myself have a very strong sense of place. Dreams and memories frequently start with a location tied to a mood (almost everywhere significant in my life is coloured with a predominant mood); the associated events, people and actions come later. Senate House library (to take a random example that came up in conversation with a friend recently) bears a mood of solitide: it's an upper floor, deserted apart from me; it's cold outside and dusk has come early; I'm opening books that seem not to have been opened for forty years or more, and watching long-dead Victorians rehearse their obsolete concerns. I don't have to remain in that spot or that mood, but that's where any mental trip their tends to begin.

Perhaps it was the same for my grandmother. Her mother's sickness in the 30s, the ladies with their hats and babies, the church beyond the fields: it could mean nothing or a great deal.

I should have asked.

Earlier.
 
Yithian said:
I am interested in the reason(s) behind the seeming reversion to childhood I witnessed as dementia ran its course.
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In dementia, which comes in many forms, people lose their memory in a process that works backwards. So their short-term memory deteriotates first: they won't remember what they had for breakfast or what was in the news last night.

Their older memories seem to become sharper. Perhaps they can name every teacher in their first school, having not thought about them for years.

Everything I've just described was told to me by people whose dementia was taking hold to the extent that they needed institutional care. It was a frightening time for them.
All I could do was assure them that they would be kept safe and their dignity preserved. I hope I was right.
 
My grandmother's dementia progressed to a stage where she seemed mentally to regress to babyhood - lost all speech and the ability to feed herself or recognise anybody. Whereas in my mother it manifested as saying random things. When I visited her in hospital after a small stroke, she kept telling my brother and I that we had to buy the gold now or it would all be gone. I took this as her trying to express her anxiety about her situation (worrying about the gold being gone) and about my brother and I (we'd miss out if we didn't hurry). She could also speak normally - she asked me when I'd be back, for example and I told her I had to go home but I'd 'see her soon'. It was the last time I saw her.
 
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