This September the Guildford Evening Mothers' Union organised and hosted a meeting about supporting older people, particularly those with dementia.  The event was held at St Saviour's, Guildford and was attended by about 100 people.  The key speakers were Dr Trevor Adams who runs  Passionate Dementia Care, a specialist training and consultancy business, Rosemary Hurtley, a Consultant Occupational Therapist specialising in older people in older people and cultures of care , and Jean Davy from St Saviour's, whose husband has Lewy Body Dementia.  Rev Peter Levell chaired the evening. Alison Ney (Holy Trinity) welcomed everyone to the meeting on behalf of the Mothers' Union and Jan Hancock (Holy Trinity) spoke briefly about the Mothers' Union work within this diocese and internationally.

The speakers described what it meant to have dementia and discussed how people, families and the local community could help support people with dementia.  Trevor described how various types of dementia such as Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia can affect people.  Rosemary Hurtley discussed positive ways of communicating with people with dementia. Jean Davy gave a personal account of her husband's experience of having dementia.  Towards the end of the evening, Peter Levell invited questions from people present about the issues that had been raised.         

At present there are about 700,000 people in the UK with dementia (1).  Within Surrey PCT it is estimated that there are presently about 14790 people with dementia, and of those 8796 are undiagnosed. This number with dementia is thought will rise by 33% to 19621 in the next 10 years (2).   A succession of government reports culminating in the publication of the National Dementia Strategy, 'Living Well with Dementia' (1) have moved service provision away from medically-based services in long-stay hospitals to multi-disciplinary and multi-agency services located in local communities.  This policy however places increasing responsibility on families to support relatives with dementia, and often gives rise to considerable family stress.  Moreover people with dementia often find themselves excluded and pushed out of society and their views about support left unheard.  People with dementia often find they are not treated with respect and dignity and sometimes may face emotional and physical abuse.

The evening raised important issues about positive initiatives Christians in Guildford might undertake to enable Churches become more dementia-friendly, and become involved in activities that support people with dementia and their families within the overall mission of the Church.  The recent development of Street Angels offers an excellent and encouraging example of how Christians in Guildford can work together to meet younger people  the place they are at and raises important issues about what mission might look like with older people, including people with dementia.  

 1. Source: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_094051.pdf

2. Source: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/dementiamap

Dementia Forum Talk: Part 1 of 5

Dementia Forum Talk: Part 2 of 5

Dementia Forum Talk: Part 3 of 5

Dementia Forum Talk: Part 4 of 5

Dementia Forum Talk: Part 5 of 5