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Activity for Natasha Morgan

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Nana needs you!

This challenge is posted on behalf of Lorraine king: I was just going to propose that we develop an info pack/training portal for young people how to engage their parents/grandparents and meaningfully tackle the spectre of technology, the internet etc. The image I had was just as the parent/grand-parent takes the young one by the hand to school, now it may be the turn of the younger to lead the older into this brave new world of tech. My point is that people can learn, but it takes...

by Natasha Morgan (Admin)
2 months ago

Disorienting experiences in care homes

My Grandma lives in a care home and has mild-moderate dementia. Because of coronavirus, the staff must all be dressed in full PPE. This means she cannot see their faces and so does not recognise the people around her. Being surrounded by people in such strange outfits must be very scary. Residents are also being confined to her room and only being allowed into the common areas in shifts. This prevents grandma from socialising with her friends, which is what she enjoys most. Although I...

by Natasha Morgan (Admin)
3 months ago

A change in routine

My mother-in-law has early-onset Alzheimer's. She can find new situations unsettling and so finds comfort in her daily and weekly routines and regular activities, such as swimming. With shops, services and leisure facilities shutting down, she doesn't understand why she can't do the things she normally does. How might we provide structure to people's days when their regular activity is taken away?

by Natasha Morgan (Admin)
3 months ago

Thanks for expanding on that, Tracey. We know there are issues with not everyone being IT literate, or being online at all, but it is surprising that it is such a huge issue at your father's home. Many of the solutions being developed currently so require some use of technology, but we will always keep in mind that we need to find other ways to reach people that won't be able to make use of them.

I have also passed your comments on to our Regional Public Affairs team to feed into their work to influence local authorities.

"Never let a crisis got to waste". Wise words Margaret! Often we need to turn things on their head in order for real innovation to happen.

Hi Tracey, welcome to the hub, and thank you for sharing your concerns about your dad. It must be a very difficult time for you and your family.

What are the suggestions you have to improve things? There are new opportunities for innovation presenting themselves all the time, so we are always keen to hear about ideas.

Thank you, Alice, for sharing that challenge, and for your suggestions, Jennifer. I have also heard people express similar concerns around losing the ability to drive or get about independently. Does anyone have thoughts on this, or know of solutions which might help?

Diana, thank you so much for sharing your story and I'm sorry to hear you are in such a difficult situation. As art of our upcoming work we will consider what more we can do to help support carers of people with dementia.

Thanks Fiona, that's a really interesting point about the attitudes of different generations. I wonder if there are any existing resources about mental health for older people that we could build on.

Thank you Helen and Isabelle.This is clearly an important topic. As a team we will consider what we might be able to do to help address it.

In the meantime, please do share any further thoughts, experiences or ideas for solutions.

Thank you, Zoe, for bringing this resource to our attention, and your offer of support. We will consider what we can do to make use of this alongside other innovations and will get in touch as appropriate.

In the meantime, does anyone else have thoughts on how this might be useful in the current situation?

Thank you for letting us know about this, Vicki. Are there any challenges which are coming out particularly strongly?

Thank you for sharing your concerns, Chris. Alzheimer's Society have shared a list of ideas for things to do while you are in isolation https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-support/cor...living-dementia. However, there may well be more we can do to innovate new solutions.

Does anyone else have this concern, and/or any thoughts on potential solutions?

Thank you Margaret, its great to hear that there are things out there which we might be able to build on.