An interesting thing happened on the way to Olympia.
I chatted with the cabbie how you could never ‘repay’ our closest relatives for their love, as they lived with dementia.
In my case – my mum; in the cabbie’s case, his mother in law.
I remember when I used to present ‘Dementia Friends’ sessions I used to claim that you’d be very likely to know at least someone who knew someone with dementia.
When there was originally talk about doing an awareness campaign nationally about ten years ago, I remember that one of the issues was that, in general, people’s knowledge about dementia was poor.
This was held to be responsible for dementia being one of the most feared diagnoses in adulthood. It was also argued that the stigma arose from lack of knowledge about dementia, making people with dementia and their closest unwilling to tell friends and other members of the family about the diagnosis.
I am certain that the policy intentions, therefore, of ‘dementia friendly communities’ are good, even though I myself have argued on a different emphasis to them (see for example the article I published with Kate Swaffer earlier this year in Dementia journal, link).
I had a real sense of déjà vu today at the Alzheimer’s Show.
All the speakers today, I felt, were outstanding [though I felt that the case for minimal cognitive impairment was overstated in drug trial recruitment as ever].
A few years ago, when the show was launched, I did a ‘Meet the author’ slot to present my book ‘Living well with dementia’. This seems like a very long time ago now.
The talk by Adam Smith on challenges facing acute care in dementia was excellent. It gave me a chance to advocate for #EndPJParalysis in the context of my feeling that delirium care in England is on the whole very poor. I was also critical of ‘discharge to assess’, as I mouthed off the notion of ‘medically fit for discharge’, leading people like mum with hypoactive delirium to be unsafely discharged from hospital.
Dr Neil Graham, a Clinical Fellow at Imperial (St Mary’s), gave a brilliant talk on chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This is a subject I’m interested in out of loyalty to Huw Morris, who was my first ever SpR as a SHO at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in 2002. Huw is now a Prof at the Royal Free Hampstead.
I thought Tim McLachlan was excellent. And I’m really grateful for Tim for saying politely that we need to do something about the state of play of health and social care. Many would have simply shied away from speaking out.
I managed to pick up a copy of the best book on dementia ever written – “The Dementia Guide” from the Alzheimer’s Society, which to this day I use as a helpful reference.
I whinged to the NHS Health Education England about the perpetual refrain to ‘train the workforce’. The two at the desk asked me what I’d done about it.
I replied – I’d written a book with Rob Howard. That’s what.
And the best thing was – I got in for free, with minimal dispute at the front door over the fact that I am a medical professional.
Dr Shibley Rahman blog 