Positive Futures: Coping with Caring for Someone with Dementia

There are 820,000 people with diagnosed dementia in the UK and most of these will be living at home cared for by their families.  The whole family can be affected by the diagnosis of dementia and  family carers will wonder how they are going to cope with the life changes which will follow the diagnosis.  Caring for someone with dementia which can stretch for many year and is tiring. And isolating. And often leads to depression and anxiety for carers. Where can carers get help?

SPECAL is Special

SPECAL stands for Specialised Early Care for Alzheimers and is a method of communication which harnesses a person with dementia's  intact past memories to relate to present events and  so allows them to enjoy well being and a good quality of life.  I came across SPECAL several years ago and have been intrigued by the approach but only last week was finally able to access a course held at the SPECAL centre in Burford, Oxfordshire.  It was everthing I expected - good quality training which gave much food for thought and inpiration.

The Dementia Declaration

Readers will notice that there is a new badge on this blog site - The Dementia Declaration.  This is a campaign spearheaded by the Community Care magazine and involving a number of high profile bodies such as the Alzheimer's Society and the United Kingdom HomeCare Association.  Thy are quite simply calling for a full debate on the issue of dementia during the general election, a recognition of the increasing numbers of people with the disorder and the the need to make their care an explicit priority when allocating resources in the future.