A PERSONAL ISSUE

A personal issue

In a lay man's world, from my experience and practical view, Dementia is the declining of the brain and its abilities, I chose the word declining, because from the onset, People with dementia deteriorate ( no fears for with good support and care giving there are levels of declining which could be sustained for a longer wellbeing), once dementia is diagnosed and knowing for the fact that there could be no cure with it's degrading personality shiftings, makes dementia comparable to Cancer or Aids. There is no patient when it comes to dementia but people living in their own perspectives or personalities. People with dementia may become apathetic, experience mood swings and also find it difficult to control behaviour changes, why not, imagine being asked to compete with the improbable . Everyday task becomes frustratingly strange as the hours pass. Executive functioning of the brain decreases, it’s worth it to try and develop a practical explanation, which flows literally like the progressive dementia. For sure dementia does not begin and just end at a point but progresses into deteriorating conditions driven by the impairments in the memory, thinking, language, understanding and judgment. More or less dementia signifies cognitive malfunction. People tend to confuse Alzheimer's as same as or just another name for dementia. If we doubt the meaning and concept of dementia, Care providing homes registered for dementia care would be the right place to start our adventures; never mind the hospitals, nursing homes or quotes from so called professionals.This is not about placing everyone with dementia into care (anyway it could be a good idea if the necessary support is not to be found in any sort of environment either than a professional caring home) but getting involved with such care giving homes for the fundamental reasons of knowing and experiencing dementia and how to cope with dementia as in both the care giver and the person with dementia is priceless. Somehow dementia is the whole picture and Alzheimer is only and just one type, amongst a lot, of dementia. Now that we clear that dementia is bigger than Alzheimer how then does dementia operate. Dementia is a unique dimension, effective than 3Ds on our screens, so anyone with a doubt needs to adopt the basic notion that anyone with dementia is seen as completely unique and lives in a particular reality, better still one cannot compare one unique dimension as the same as the others. I may not have a version of what dementia is because in a way we can't accurately define a person if we don’t really know that person. Compare to that of evolution, I appreciate the capabilities of scientist being able to recreate the beginning to support their research; somehow people choose evolution over creation because of the possibilities of recreating that moment of the Big Bang. Practical Reasoning is the only means by which I could depict the meaning of dementia. The particular person DIAGNOSED with dementia must be present for us carers to be able to live that person’s reality in order to know and feel as that person with dementia. Possibly carers can do this with recorded documents, professional help (G.P’s, nurses) and most importantly families and friends support. This highlights the fact that dementia is all about person centred care. From experience dementia seems to be a syndrome, meaning a group of related symptoms, obviously things like personality changes are common. Considering dementia as a syndrome, means that there would be causes of such related symptoms, these causes could be called the diseases. Amongst these diseases are those that cause changes to the stature of the brain. Alzheimer's dementia, Vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy Bodies, Frontotemporal dementia and various types of dementia being discovered through numerous studies are common types of dementia CARERS face in their wonderful daily tasks. Remember no memory is ever completely lost, a person with dementia always has the memory of the past kept with that particular person, like a secret cave the person can assess with support and as we care for that particular individual, we can join that reality in a person centred approach and live that precious memory with the person.