Speaker 1: Adventist Radio London inspiration for.
Speaker 2: The song.
Speaker 3: Good evening, Good evening, Good evening, and welcome to Talking Point.
Speaker 3: I hope people had a really good day to day.
Speaker 3: It's always good to get to the end of the
Speaker 3: week and recognize that we're taking a rest from her
Speaker 3: daily week and having good Sabbath. So whenever you've got
Speaker 3: up to I hope it's been a blessed day. And
Speaker 3: thank you once again for joining us on Talking Point.
Speaker 3: As usual, I'm joined by my trustee co hosts. We're
Speaker 3: all actually on today, so Zenya and Pedro, how are
Speaker 3: you both?
Speaker 4: I am well, and yeah, it's good to be back.
Speaker 4: We took a decent break over the summer and we've
Speaker 4: been all sort of pered in everywhere, and yeah, it's
Speaker 4: good to be back in the room. It's good to
Speaker 4: be rack for another edition, a very important edition of
Speaker 4: Talking Point.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 3: I'm Petra. How have you been? And then when I
Speaker 3: expect to you this week, you're saying you had a
Speaker 3: really you've had a really busy summer. So how has
Speaker 3: it been for you?
Speaker 2: It's been. I'm good, it's been a really good summer.
Speaker 5: Like I said, busy, yea beside my daughter breaking her foot,
Speaker 5: I broke my hand, things like that, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I fell on my I fell out of a house
Speaker 5: and fell on my hand, broke my pinky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I know. So you know what else is That's how
Speaker 5: it calls me. I'm the most clumsiest man, you know.
Speaker 5: So I just proved that point. Could you guys have
Speaker 5: a question real quick, I'm trying. I not this thing.
Speaker 5: I'm really quick with this question. Why is it that
Speaker 5: you guys put lips on the bottom of the door frames?
Speaker 3: I mean not being you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Does anybody know it?
Speaker 5: And like they put lips like you know, like in
Speaker 5: a state, they just have a door frame and you walk,
Speaker 5: you step out the door. But here they put like
Speaker 5: this little tuiny like like level shovel or something. So
Speaker 5: I was walking, I turned my head and my foot
Speaker 5: hit the lip as I was going out the door.
Speaker 5: And that's what made me go forward because I was thinking,
Speaker 5: I'm just stepping out into the outside of the house, okay,
Speaker 5: And that's why I felt because I hit that lip
Speaker 5: in my foot and I just kind of, you know,
Speaker 5: big old man just flying out the house. It looked
Speaker 5: really funny, you know, it was really embarrassing. Yeah, all
Speaker 5: that good stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean the whole door frame thing. I
Speaker 3: have no idea. I mean, I guess that's just how
Speaker 3: the doors are.
Speaker 4: I mean, there might be a scientific reason, and if
Speaker 4: anyone's listening and knows.
Speaker 5: It, I think it's just me. I just think it's
Speaker 5: a British thing. But anyway, I.
Speaker 4: Would like to think there was some reasoning behind it,
Speaker 4: and it's just not someone decided, you know what, let's
Speaker 4: just put the trip hazard here.
Speaker 2: Somebody like making just trip over it and you know,
Speaker 2: break their finger. You know.
Speaker 4: Wow, I'm.
Speaker 3: Easy and yeah, high paved the heels. Yeah he was quickly.
Speaker 5: It feels okay, I'm still working as to stop me
Speaker 5: from working, be honest with you. Good because I used
Speaker 5: my other fingers to write and cut, so I just
Speaker 5: tried to keep immobilized.
Speaker 6: And yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so blessing that it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it could have been. I felt I actually
Speaker 2: landed on my hand.
Speaker 5: I felt like my rest went towards my fingers, so
Speaker 5: I felt like I actually booke all my fingers when
Speaker 5: I did it.
Speaker 2: At first. Luckily it was just my pinky. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was definitely a blessing.
Speaker 3: Glad that you're here and it was nothing worse.
Speaker 4: How about you? How was your How was your break?
Speaker 2: How was your break?
Speaker 3: It It's been Yeah, it's been good. I mean it's
Speaker 3: been busy as always because I think every weekend there's
Speaker 3: been something happening. Over the bank holiday weekend that we had.
Speaker 3: I thought I was actually going to Cheltenham. I ended
Speaker 3: up in Whales with a group of friends, which was
Speaker 3: really nice. We'd rented at cottage and it was just
Speaker 3: really nice to be out of the city and just
Speaker 3: kind of in nature really and we took a program
Speaker 3: over to Cheltenham, which is actually really good as well,
Speaker 3: really lovely church members there and just been able to
Speaker 3: just take some time out and it's definitely good for me.
Speaker 3: I was always not sure if I was going to
Speaker 3: be able to make it, but yeah, it was really nice,
Speaker 3: and yeah, just kind of it's been busy, you know,
Speaker 3: lots of things happening. But here we are back again,
Speaker 3: waring to go with our I don't know what are
Speaker 3: we on season whatever it would be. Yeah, we've been
Speaker 3: going what three years now, three years.
Speaker 2: Or oh I came I came in at after the
Speaker 2: first year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so yeah, before it's been three years because I
Speaker 5: start my anniversary is my work day anniversary of a
Speaker 5: day when I started my job, is that you guys
Speaker 5: called me and asked me to join I was actually
Speaker 5: going for That's what I always remember.
Speaker 2: I was going for orientation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was down and down, way down in Exeter
Speaker 5: or form or whatever I was at and that's when
Speaker 5: you call me late that evening, and that's what I
Speaker 5: always remember.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely been three for us. Okay, cool, if
Speaker 2: you was a year before that, it has been four.
Speaker 3: Oh oh yeah. So we've got some you know, we've
Speaker 3: got some great shows planned in the works already, so yeah,
Speaker 3: looking forward to doing those. However, we are here today
Speaker 3: and we're going to be talking about another other kind
Speaker 3: of I suppose often on Talking Point we do talk
Speaker 3: a lot about different health topics, different mental health topics
Speaker 3: and what have you. So we're going to be covering
Speaker 3: one today, which actually it's a theme of this month
Speaker 3: of September, but also today, the twenty first of September
Speaker 3: being World Alzheimer's Day, so we're going to be talking
Speaker 3: about that. We've got some great guests on today, who's
Speaker 3: going to be sharing about the work that they do
Speaker 3: and the impact they are having within this world of dementia.
Speaker 3: So before we get started into that, let's have a
Speaker 3: word of prayer, So you would you mind praying for
Speaker 3: us to start.
Speaker 4: A definitely, Father, thank you for bringing us together for
Speaker 4: another conversation on this critical and timely topic. We're talking
Speaker 4: Alzheimer's and dementia law. And I thank you for the
Speaker 4: experts I have accepted the invitation to come on. I
Speaker 4: pray that you give them wisdom and clarity your thoughts
Speaker 4: so that when we are through with this discussion, whenever
Speaker 4: we have shared will make a difference for those listening
Speaker 4: best the technology and the lesser slow I pray.
Speaker 3: In Jesus name, Amen, Amen.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Okay, So, as I said, it's World Alzheimer's month September,
Speaker 3: and today it's World Alzheimer's Day, and so we're going
Speaker 3: to be talking a little bit about that. And I
Speaker 3: know we have done a show about this before, and
Speaker 3: as you know, as many of these topics we could
Speaker 3: pub there's a lot to talk about around this, but
Speaker 3: I guess this time we kind of be really talking
Speaker 3: about a little bit about what it is Alzheimer's is
Speaker 3: what dementias are, but also about people who are making
Speaker 3: a difference with this within this area. It's a topic
Speaker 3: that is dear to my heart because over the last
Speaker 3: I suppose what twenty since twenty nineteen, I've been on
Speaker 3: that journey of being a caregiver supporting my mum who
Speaker 3: was living with Alzheimer's, and it definitely has been a journey,
Speaker 3: definitely been one of learning emotional ups and downs, but
Speaker 3: also quite I say a learning process, but learning about
Speaker 3: the disease itself, but learning the opportunity to learn from
Speaker 3: other people as well. You know, I've kind of had
Speaker 3: to do lots of research myself, not only in terms
Speaker 3: of understanding what it's all about, but also how I
Speaker 3: can be effective in the support and learning a lot
Speaker 3: about myself. You get to an age and you think
Speaker 3: you kind of have an idea, A lot of that's
Speaker 3: gone out the window, so you know, and you know,
Speaker 3: life is a journey. There's always something new to learn,
Speaker 3: and you know, every day I'm learning something new about which, sadly,
Speaker 3: just so you know, a really heartbreaking and sad disease,
Speaker 3: but it's one that's incredibly prevalence. So we're gonna be
Speaker 3: talking about that, and I guess on today are people
Speaker 3: who are, like I said, have been making a difference
Speaker 3: within this world. I'm going to call it make a
Speaker 3: difference within this world. So we've got two with us
Speaker 3: today and I'm going to just introduce, get them to
Speaker 3: introduce themselves very briefly, and then we'll start talking. And
Speaker 3: then I didn't I wasn't gonna be playing an interview
Speaker 3: that I did with my mum. Attends a day center
Speaker 3: local to where we live, which has been I would
Speaker 3: say a complete god send and a blessing respect to
Speaker 3: the manager today about the work that they do and
Speaker 3: how they support those people who are living with dementia.
Speaker 3: So that'll be part of our program today. So with
Speaker 3: a further ado, we will speak to our guests who
Speaker 3: are joining us today. Now our first one I met.
Speaker 3: I guess it's coming maybe a couple of months ago
Speaker 3: because one of the key things I found myself being
Speaker 3: a career is trying to tap into the support networks
Speaker 3: that are out there. And again I've been quite fortunate
Speaker 3: to be able to find groups that I can join
Speaker 3: that's at my workplace or in the local area. But
Speaker 3: then I was kind of sent some information about another
Speaker 3: group that was being set up, and this is how
Speaker 3: I met my first guest, Michelle. So, Hi, Michelle, welcome
Speaker 3: to our show today.
Speaker 6: Hi, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: So I just introduced us and tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about you what you do.
Speaker 6: Okay. So, my name is Michelle Guthrie. I'm a qualified counselor.
Speaker 6: I'm a child of the Windrush generation. My parents come
Speaker 6: from Jamaica.
Speaker 1: And prior to.
Speaker 6: Taking the interest that I now have in dementia and counseling,
Speaker 6: I was a teacher for many is in further education
Speaker 6: and I also run workshops and do presentations.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool, And like I said, you recently set up
Speaker 3: a support group, so we wish we will hear a
Speaker 3: little bit more about that and the work that you do.
Speaker 3: So again, thank you so much for joining us today,
Speaker 3: looking forward to our conversation and also joining us. And
Speaker 3: again this is sometimes, you know, the networking and connections happen.
Speaker 3: Our next guest is Doctrinmonia Gaspas, So again, thank you
Speaker 3: for joining us this evening. So tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about yourself and what you do and how you yeah,
Speaker 3: and how we've kind of connected here today.
Speaker 7: Good evening everyone. Thank you so much, Angela, it's a
Speaker 7: real honor to be here. Thank you, Zenia, thank you Pedro.
Speaker 7: My journey with dementia wasn't always very clear cut. I'm
Speaker 7: of Nigerian heritage, so we've got the African and we've
Speaker 7: got the Caribbean well centered. And I used to spend
Speaker 7: a lot of time with my grandmother and now I
Speaker 7: know she had dementia, but then all I knew was
Speaker 7: that it was old age. And so when I moved
Speaker 7: to the UK, I wanted to work with old people
Speaker 7: because of the relationship with my grandmother, and I met
Speaker 7: lots of old people. They were just like my grandma,
Speaker 7: and I got to find out that it wasn't old age,
Speaker 7: it was an illness, dementia, and that's when I started
Speaker 7: really getting involved in it. I'm a general practitioner by
Speaker 7: profession my day job, but every minute I have outside
Speaker 7: that I'm spent advocating and trying to educate and enlighten
Speaker 7: people on dementia, primarily in the Afro Caribbean community, but
Speaker 7: everywhere else as well. I've just completed a degree with
Speaker 7: the University of London, Queen Mary and it's global public health,
Speaker 7: but we have to do a basis on something close
Speaker 7: to our hearts. And I looked at dementia, which happens
Speaker 7: to be the twenty first century public health crisis at
Speaker 7: the moment globally. So it's not just in the UK,
Speaker 7: it's not just in the Black African community, it's everywhere.
Speaker 7: And thank you so much for highlighting it. And I'm
Speaker 7: really honored to be here.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's going to be great to kind of
Speaker 3: get the different sides to as you said, is a
Speaker 3: kind of global crisis. So with that in mind, actually, Ammonia,
Speaker 3: could you just kind of give us a bit of
Speaker 3: a background about dimension Alzheimer's for any of our listeners
Speaker 3: who may not necessarily be familiar. I think many of
Speaker 3: us know the words and have heard of the terms,
Speaker 3: but I think there's probably and I guess name to
Speaker 3: kind of a bit of misconceptions at times as well.
Speaker 3: And I know dementsia is becoming much more of a
Speaker 3: topic that's talked about. We're hearing about, you know, well
Speaker 3: known celebrities and sort of public people in the public
Speaker 3: eye who have you know, disclosed that they have been had,
Speaker 3: they've had a diagnosis. But for any of our listeners
Speaker 3: who don't know what this is about, yeah, do give
Speaker 3: us a bit of a background. And also Michelle, if
Speaker 3: you've got any bits to add in, please do it
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 7: Definitely, dementia is an umbrella term, so it's like saying
Speaker 7: you have a fever. It could be an earinfection, it
Speaker 7: could be a throat infection, it could be a urine infection,
Speaker 7: it could be meningitis anything, and that's what dementia is.
Speaker 7: There's more than two hundred types subtypes of dementia, but
Speaker 7: we hear about the commonest one, which is Alzheimer's and
Speaker 7: about sixty to eighty percent of the population globally have Alzheimer's.
Speaker 7: But in the black community, the more prevalent type of
Speaker 7: dementia is vascular dementia, and they are two completely separate
Speaker 7: different kinds. So we use dementia and Alzheimer's interchangeably. But
Speaker 7: it's important to actually know what the diagnosis that one
Speaker 7: has or our loved ones have, and in my case,
Speaker 7: my family history was one of vascular dementia, which is
Speaker 7: very closely related to blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease that
Speaker 7: kind of thing as different from Alzheimer's dementia, where there's
Speaker 7: lots of proteins that are fighting for space in the
Speaker 7: brain type of thing. So in a nutshell, that's dementia.
Speaker 7: It's a medical condition, it's an illness. Children can get dementia,
Speaker 7: Adults can get dementia, old age can get dementia. It
Speaker 7: can come from disease, it can come from trauma. So
Speaker 7: people who have head injury, either a major impact head
Speaker 7: injury or repeated bits of head injury, rugby players, that
Speaker 7: kind of thing, they can all get dementia. So it's
Speaker 7: a very broad umbrella term for lots of different conditions.
Speaker 7: That's really interesting.
Speaker 3: I've never you know, just saying that again, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be learning quite a lot today, I know. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of aware of, you know, young onset dementias,
Speaker 3: But the idea of that children could get that, I
Speaker 3: had no idea that was possibly the case.
Speaker 5: I have a question because you said children and just
Speaker 5: real quick. So once you get it, there is no
Speaker 5: you have it for rest of your life. Does that
Speaker 5: make like? Because you said child can get it, So
Speaker 5: if a child gets it, then they have to learn
Speaker 5: how to manage it. I mean where they still last
Speaker 5: a long will it affect them going forward in their
Speaker 5: life or because you know, you have a lot of time.
Speaker 5: Some people you know here that they pass from Alzheimer's
Speaker 5: or they passed from them, you know, they passed from it.
Speaker 5: So will it affect the child long term that they
Speaker 5: get it?
Speaker 7: Sadly, children get more of a metabolic kind of dementia,
Speaker 7: so it's lots of different kind of metabolic conditions, congenital
Speaker 7: conditions that they're born with, and unfortunately they don't survive
Speaker 7: to adulthood. In Okay, I thought.
Speaker 5: That was the case, but I just thought I would
Speaker 5: ask because I don't want to assume like because I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't mean the lad but I mean, it's just
Speaker 5: like because we said that, Like Angela, I said, that's
Speaker 5: shocking that you said children can get it, because we
Speaker 5: just associate with elderly. We associate with older people. We
Speaker 5: don't associated with everybody, you know, like anybody can get it.
Speaker 2: We don't associate it with that at all.
Speaker 7: And that's why it's so important to keep talking about it,
Speaker 7: to raise awareness about it because in children, they they
Speaker 7: learn all their skills that you expect them to know
Speaker 7: how to feed themselves, how to dress themselves, how to
Speaker 7: use the bathroom themselves, and then when it starts, they
Speaker 7: start losing all those skills. A lot of times diagnosis
Speaker 7: isn't very clear because nobody ever expects a young person
Speaker 7: to get it, and it's like an old, eighty year
Speaker 7: old kind of thing. So it's a very devastating, cruel disease.
Speaker 6: So I think i'd like to add a little bit
Speaker 6: onto what Ammonia said, and I should say that how
Speaker 6: it's impacted me is because my mom's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 6: We kind of suspected a few years ago, but she
Speaker 6: was tested last year and it confirmed that confirmed that
Speaker 6: she has Alzheimer's. So of course, with that diagnosis, I
Speaker 6: started to do my own reason search as you do,
Speaker 6: and looked into some statistics which I thought was quite
Speaker 6: alarming actually, so I'd probably like to share a few
Speaker 6: numbers with you, and you know, you can see what
Speaker 6: you think. So when I was doing my research, approximately
Speaker 6: it says approximately nine hundred thousand people in the UK
Speaker 6: is living with dementia and by about twenty forty that
Speaker 6: will increase to one point four million, So that's the
Speaker 6: significant amount of people, you know, living with dementia, one
Speaker 6: in eleven people would be over the age of sixty five,
Speaker 6: and one in six is over eighty years old. And
Speaker 6: I've also researched and found out that dementia affects one
Speaker 6: in twenty people under sixty five, So I think that's
Speaker 6: where the young onset dementia would come in possibly. And
Speaker 6: it's more common in women than it is in men,
Speaker 6: and it's the leading cause of death in the UK
Speaker 6: for women. So it is a big thing. It really
Speaker 6: is a big thing that needs to be taken quite seriously.
Speaker 6: And I think, like Ammonia said, we just need to
Speaker 6: keep talking about it now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I have a question another question.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, So that on that thought process you said
Speaker 5: affects women. Is it just something that just that just
Speaker 5: happens or is it like because you said the the
Speaker 5: different affects the brain or the vascular whereas you know diabetes,
Speaker 5: you know, things of that nature. Is it not eating healthy?
Speaker 5: Is it not taking care of your body?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 5: Is it you know because you said like like women
Speaker 5: will get it when they get older or you still
Speaker 5: get it ONSTEDT is it like have they been able
Speaker 5: to kind of pinpoint why you develop Alzheimers or is
Speaker 5: it just something that just happens it just genetically, or
Speaker 5: do you understand I mean maybe all over the map
Speaker 5: here a little bit. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to
Speaker 5: get a better understanding.
Speaker 7: No, no, you're not pedro. I think that's an excellent question.
Speaker 7: But the thing is that with many of us, we
Speaker 7: live like we don't think about long term consequences. Our
Speaker 7: lives in all sorts of ways, sometimes less healthy than
Speaker 7: we should. We smoke, we drink too much, we take
Speaker 7: on too much stress, we don't sleep enough. We all
Speaker 7: the things that we shouldn't necessarily be doing to that
Speaker 7: degree we do. And then we get older and we
Speaker 7: wonder why, you know, things aren't we don't have a
Speaker 7: healthy old age. You know, we all want to live
Speaker 7: till an old age. But it's more about living healthily
Speaker 7: to an al Alzheimer's is. This is why it's so
Speaker 7: important to get a diagnosis, because Alzheimer's is more prevalent
Speaker 7: in females, and yes it's the number one cause of death,
Speaker 7: although statistics are absolutely correct. However, vascular dementia has equal
Speaker 7: male and female prevalence. A lot of people are like, well,
Speaker 7: I'm not going to get it, you know. But Roslyn Carter,
Speaker 7: the wife of the former American presidents, made a very
Speaker 7: very profound quote, and she said, there's four types of
Speaker 7: people in the world. Those that are careers, those that
Speaker 7: will be careers, those that will need care, and the
Speaker 7: fourth group is those that eventually will become careers. So
Speaker 7: by twenty fifty, to add to Michelle's statistics, one in
Speaker 7: two of us will fall into those one of those
Speaker 7: four categories. See that dementia ourselves, which is accumulation of
Speaker 7: lots of different life lifestyle factors, genetic factors. I must
Speaker 7: say that we might have the gene, or a person
Speaker 7: might have the gene, but it's our environment that pulls
Speaker 7: the trigger. So not everybody that has the gene, which
Speaker 7: is a Poe four for dementia, will go on to
Speaker 7: develop dementia. And some people who don't have the gene,
Speaker 7: if they've lived their lives in a very challenging, difficult
Speaker 7: way for their brains, will go on to develop dementia
Speaker 7: even if they haven't got the gene. So it's a
Speaker 7: very very complex, very complicated picture, and you just need
Speaker 7: to keep talking because right now we have no cure
Speaker 7: for it.
Speaker 3: Right, And you mentioned about diagnosis, I mean, is that
Speaker 3: an easy you know, it's it easy for people to
Speaker 3: get a diagnosis because obviously you know what happened. I
Speaker 3: guess I'm saying I know myself from experience, but I
Speaker 3: guess before my mum did have a diagnosis, I kind
Speaker 3: of never really considered it. And as I reflect back,
Speaker 3: looking back and looking at maybe behaviors that were presenting
Speaker 3: or you know, things that were happening which I might
Speaker 3: have kind of a sparse at the back of my
Speaker 3: mind think well, actually that may seems a bit strange
Speaker 3: or odd. I never really considered it. I never really
Speaker 3: put two and two together. I really never really looked
Speaker 3: at it. But looking back, I probably think maybe the
Speaker 3: signs were there and it might have been going on
Speaker 3: for a good number of years before you know, finally
Speaker 3: went protests and everything like that. So you know, how
Speaker 3: how does one kind of you know, get a diagnosism
Speaker 3: in what kind of things would you be looking for?
Speaker 3: Because I guess as well, there are things that you
Speaker 3: kind of sometimes we make assumptions about it being a senior,
Speaker 3: it is a seniors, or you know, it's a natural
Speaker 3: part of aging, that kind of thing, but you know,
Speaker 3: it's probably not. But I think that's maybe where it
Speaker 3: seems to be normalized as that's what it is, which
Speaker 3: maybe is the kind of conception there.
Speaker 7: Yes, and you're absolutely right, Angela, and I think that
Speaker 7: that's the purpose or this will help as well to
Speaker 7: dispelling some of those myths. If you don't talk about it,
Speaker 7: you're not ever gonna think about it, you're not going
Speaker 7: to ever know about it. And lots of communities don't
Speaker 7: necessarily talk about certain things, which is fine, but when
Speaker 7: it's become an epidemic, then everybody kind of needs to
Speaker 7: sit up and like, oops, what's going on here? You
Speaker 7: have to suspect it. And that's where that's the angle
Speaker 7: I come from, because very often it's the caregivers who
Speaker 7: think that, you know, something's wrong with mummy, she's not right,
Speaker 7: because Mummy doesn't see herself as having a problem. So
Speaker 7: it's the people around them, the people who live with them,
Speaker 7: their loved ones, their families and friends, who notice it.
Speaker 7: But if they don't raise it, or if they don't
Speaker 7: encourage their loved one to go and see their doctors
Speaker 7: for whatever their concerns are, Alzheimer's may present with memory loss,
Speaker 7: where you know, they just say, oh, I haven't seen you,
Speaker 7: but you were there the day before. Two minutes later
Speaker 7: they say again, oh I haven't seen you, and you say, oh,
Speaker 7: but I was here yesterday, and then they keep repeating it.
Speaker 7: Then you know that, But then it's way down the line.
Speaker 7: By time symptoms start showing, or by time they get
Speaker 7: to that stage, the disease has been present at least
Speaker 7: twenty years prior, you know, So, like you said, Angela,
Speaker 7: you start thinking back and it's like, oh, okay, so
Speaker 7: that's what that was all about. You know my mom
Speaker 7: In the instance of my mom, hers was paranoia and
Speaker 7: she was somebody who was as cool as a cucumber.
Speaker 7: You know, nothing ever flapped her. She was completely chilled,
Speaker 7: and all of a sudden she was suspicious about everything.
Speaker 7: You know. If you'd say you'd hold her handbag, she'd
Speaker 7: take it and should look if the money was still there,
Speaker 7: you know, out of character. So looking for behavior changes
Speaker 7: not necessarily memory loss, because it's only Alzheimer's that will
Speaker 7: present initially with memory loss. Vascalate dementia and another very
Speaker 7: common one, fronto temporal dementia that presents with really you
Speaker 7: know kind of behavior like I don't like you, you know,
Speaker 7: like your behavior, and you start being withdrawing from the
Speaker 7: person rather than gravitating towards them to get them help.
Speaker 7: But if you don't have a high index of suspicion,
Speaker 7: if you've never heard about dementia, you're just going to say, oh,
Speaker 7: this is old age, or he's going through a bad patch,
Speaker 7: or she's not feeling very well, and then you have
Speaker 7: all sorts of reasons why things are happening how they're happening.
Speaker 7: But when that happens, if you go to your doctor,
Speaker 7: it's very easy to get assessed, and initial assessments are done,
Speaker 7: and it's very easy to be referred to memory clinics,
Speaker 7: and it's really helpful to get diagnosed at those early stages.
Speaker 7: A lot of people who are diagnosed in the early stages,
Speaker 7: they're still working, they're still holding down full time jobs.
Speaker 7: But if you don't say it, then comes to lights
Speaker 7: in a crisis situation, right a question.
Speaker 4: If pet my pressure would be and I know things different,
Speaker 4: maybe you can talk as a practicing GP, but sometimes
Speaker 4: when things are labeled or have we stepped away from that,
Speaker 4: But sometimes when things are labeled as an old age
Speaker 4: disease or disease that becomes more prevalent at a certain
Speaker 4: age or at a certain time in your life, or
Speaker 4: for certain for certain ethnic groups or whatever. When you
Speaker 4: go to the GP and you say, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'd like to be assessed or i'd like someone I
Speaker 4: love to be assessed, is it well received or do
Speaker 4: you have to be persistent? Do you have to meet
Speaker 4: certain markers? How easy is it? Because you said it is,
Speaker 4: But in my experience, and obviously it's not surrounding dementia.
Speaker 4: But if I come to the doctor at twenty and say,
Speaker 4: you know what, I've got heart problems. I feel like
Speaker 4: I might be struggling with something that might be cardiovascular,
Speaker 4: They'll say, well, you're too young for that, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't. Let's rule other things out first. Or you
Speaker 4: have to be very insistent and persistent to get the
Speaker 4: help in a particular era. So if I'm young and
Speaker 4: I come to the doctor and I say, you know what,
Speaker 4: I want to be assessed for dementia or I don't
Speaker 4: hit those markers in their mind, would they still push
Speaker 4: me through or does or will we have to be
Speaker 4: persistent and insistent on it.
Speaker 7: The short answer is that they will push you through
Speaker 7: and he doesn't want to get hauled up before the
Speaker 7: General Medical Council will have an attitude of three strikes
Speaker 7: and you're out.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: The first time you go to your GP and complain
Speaker 7: you know what, I don't remember stuff, or my husband
Speaker 7: is saying I'm acting strangely, or my children are saying
Speaker 7: I'm getting very quarrelsome. The least that should be done
Speaker 7: is your routine bloods because there's loads of things that
Speaker 7: can mimic dementia, loads of conditions, which just fixing it
Speaker 7: on a simple blood test and your writer's reign again.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: People don't even get to that stage. You know, they
Speaker 7: for it, or they ignore the advice, or they just say, oh,
Speaker 7: my family don't want me or for whatever reason. You know,
Speaker 7: it gets a little bit uncomfortable to go to the adoptors.
Speaker 7: But not everybody does that. Some people are very open
Speaker 7: about it, especially when they've had experience of it personally
Speaker 7: or through friends or other family members, and then you
Speaker 7: know they're like, hmm, I saw Auntie Eva a few
Speaker 7: years ago. I remember when my mom started showing symptoms.
Speaker 7: I said to my dad, do you think mommy is
Speaker 7: becoming like ma'am mind you. I thought my grandma's was
Speaker 7: old age, because that's what I knew then. And my
Speaker 7: dad said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 7: And I believed him because you want to believe, you know,
Speaker 7: that there's nothing wrong. But after a while I thought,
Speaker 7: this is not there's something wrong here. There's something wrong
Speaker 7: and you know so. But then it was still a
Speaker 7: bit of a struggle with my siblings. Oh, nothing's wrong
Speaker 7: with mommy. Nothing's wrong with mommy, And they say, hey, guys,
Speaker 7: this is more than just whatever she's complaining about, you know,
Speaker 7: because hers was paranoia. You don't trust the helpers in
Speaker 7: the house. You can't, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 7: And you still want to hope that there is nothing wrong,
Speaker 7: but there's no harm in checking.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be my question.
Speaker 5: I have a friend whose mother is over ninety and
Speaker 5: she's a sweet lady, and she's showing signs. But when
Speaker 5: she when they went to the GP, they said that
Speaker 5: she didn't have any that she wasn't showing any signs
Speaker 5: of it. But she's showing the markers of like forgetfulness,
Speaker 5: and you know, and some of the things that you
Speaker 5: just said. You know, so what do they do because
Speaker 5: they're like, they're she the mother daughter really thinks that
Speaker 5: she may have something going on, but the GPS saying,
Speaker 5: oh no, there's nothing. We tested her and she didn't
Speaker 5: meet the markers.
Speaker 7: Ask to be referred to a memory clinic. Okay, I
Speaker 7: have palpitations. I don't know what it is. You do
Speaker 7: all the tests and everything seems fine, but they're still complaining.
Speaker 7: You're not going to sit there and let them have
Speaker 7: a heart attack on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 7: I'm just say, you know what, let's ask the cardiologists
Speaker 7: to see you and see what's going on. You know,
Speaker 7: so you keep saying three strikes, you're still complaining it
Speaker 7: might not be anything. And then at least you can say, look,
Speaker 7: we've done ABCD. Whatever are the investments. Mind you, a
Speaker 7: lot of the newer investigations are still in sort of
Speaker 7: experimental stages. So there's a lot on the news, but
Speaker 7: it's not available in primary care. So I don't hope
Speaker 7: for that.
Speaker 5: You know that, Well, no, this is not this is
Speaker 5: not in the UK. This is somebody there's in another country.
Speaker 5: So is even a little bit different in terms of healthcare.
Speaker 5: So is that in the UK? So I just want
Speaker 5: to point that out.
Speaker 7: Keep asking.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think to follow on actually from what Ammonia saying,
Speaker 6: I was having some longtime concerns about my own mum.
Speaker 6: You know, she'd start sentences and stop midway. She couldn't
Speaker 6: finish them, changing mood and behavior, sleep problems, even she
Speaker 6: just wasn't sleeping very much, you know. And I actually
Speaker 6: got her referred to a memory clinic. I think I
Speaker 6: waited about probably four months, four or five months before
Speaker 6: I got an appointment. When I speak to other people
Speaker 6: that I know whose parents have dementia, they waited considerably longer.
Speaker 6: So I guess maybe it depends on what bur are
Speaker 6: you living. I don't know. But somebody came to the home,
Speaker 6: my mum's home and did the test with her in
Speaker 6: her home. Now I must admit mum was a little
Speaker 6: bit frustrated. It took about a good hour and a
Speaker 6: half to two hours to get her tested, you know,
Speaker 6: and she was just so fed up and exhausted by
Speaker 6: the end of it, you know, And unfortunately she really
Speaker 6: wasn't understanding some of the questions they were asking her,
Speaker 6: and that made it difficult as well. And they were
Speaker 6: asking her to do little activities like trace around an image,
Speaker 6: for example, and she didn't understand what you know, and
Speaker 6: they were asking her questions that she really couldn't understand.
Speaker 6: And then it made me think, Hm, how cultural specific
Speaker 6: is this? You know, this memory test? How cultural specific
Speaker 6: is it? And then at the end of it, Mum
Speaker 6: looked at me and she held my hand and she said,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Michelle, And I said, Mom, what are you
Speaker 6: sorry about? She said, I know I've let you down,
Speaker 6: haven't tied? And I said, no, no, no, you haven't
Speaker 6: let me down. She was just so frustrated by the
Speaker 6: end of you know, and she couldn't wait for the
Speaker 6: lady to go. And then a couple of weeks after
Speaker 6: we got the diagnosis that is Alzheimer's. But on talking
Speaker 6: to other people, I know they actually had a brain
Speaker 6: scan an MRI scan as a way of diagnosing, and
Speaker 6: Mom didn't have a brain scan, so I'm not really
Speaker 6: sure whether she has Alzheimer's or whether it is another
Speaker 6: type of dementia. I don't know, ammonia. Should she have
Speaker 6: had a brain scan on top of the memory clinic diagnosis.
Speaker 7: You talking about an ideal world or the real world.
Speaker 7: I used to work in a very affluent part of
Speaker 7: the UK, and I think I got spoilt working there
Speaker 7: because everything was you just had to think about it
Speaker 7: and you got it. You just had to fill in
Speaker 7: a form and within a week the patient got what
Speaker 7: you requested. You know, Michelle, I work in a more
Speaker 7: urban area now, and you know, some patients look at
Speaker 7: you and you look at them and what can you do?
Speaker 7: You know, But there's lots of would I say, tricks
Speaker 7: of the trade. And if somebody has got high blood
Speaker 7: pressure and over the years it's not necessarily well controlled,
Speaker 7: and somebody's got diabetes and it's been average control, not fantastic,
Speaker 7: then you're kind of thinking along the lines of could
Speaker 7: this be vascular dementia? If obviously we're talking about dementia.
Speaker 7: If somebody's seventy plus eighty and have only just started
Speaker 7: forgetting to turn the hob off or keep calling their
Speaker 7: children several times a day asking the same question uestion,
Speaker 7: then you're thinking, okay, could this be Alzheimer's? And when
Speaker 7: you're having somebody who's younger than sixty five, which then
Speaker 7: you're thinking early on set. But it brings us back
Speaker 7: to the point of if you don't suspect something, you're
Speaker 7: not going to look for it. You know, it always
Speaker 7: has to be at the back of your mind. To
Speaker 7: a large extent, a brain scan is not one hundred
Speaker 7: percent necessary in all cases, and a lot of people
Speaker 7: present in a bit of a crisis situation. Unfortunately, when
Speaker 7: it's more useful, it's when you have, say, fifty five
Speaker 7: year old chief executive who you know just doesn't hoping
Speaker 7: that well anymore, and you're thinking, what's going on here?
Speaker 7: You know it's not very clear, But when it's been
Speaker 7: going on for quite a while and they turn up,
Speaker 7: you know, after several years, then it's pretty obvious. You
Speaker 7: know what's going on, and you know you don't want
Speaker 7: to go through too many invasive investigations. Luckily, we're getting
Speaker 7: bio markers. It's not quite out yet, but previously the
Speaker 7: dementias and Alzheimer's would be a diagnosis of exclusion. But
Speaker 7: now with the when the bio markers really come on board,
Speaker 7: it would be as simple blood tests the same as
Speaker 7: your kidney function and your liver function and your full
Speaker 7: blood count, which would be fantastic but you know that's
Speaker 7: not quite We're not quite there yet. We don't have
Speaker 7: it out in primary care. So you know, there's lots
Speaker 7: of work going on. But I think the most important
Speaker 7: thing is that everybody you know, me inclusive. I thought
Speaker 7: it was old age at one point, you know. So
Speaker 7: we just have to keep educating ourselves as much as
Speaker 7: we can.
Speaker 3: Cool So with that in mind, Ammonia, you mentioned that
Speaker 3: you have conducted some research. Tell you a little bit
Speaker 3: about the area that you were looking at and kind
Speaker 3: of what's more of your findings were from that.
Speaker 7: Thank you for your interest. My research was looking at,
Speaker 7: I suppose a little bit of a contentious area, and
Speaker 7: I was looking specifically at Black Africans in the UK, because,
Speaker 7: as we all know, there's a big umbrella label, just
Speaker 7: like dementia, we have a big umbrella label of bame,
Speaker 7: bame and under bame. You've got the Caribbeans, You've got
Speaker 7: the Africans, you've got the Sri Lankans, you've got the Irish,
Speaker 7: you've got the Japanese, you've got the Chinese, and we're
Speaker 7: all supposed to be one homogeneous group. I'm not saying
Speaker 7: Black Africa is one homogeneous group. But it kind of
Speaker 7: narrows it down a little bit. I think the cultural
Speaker 7: aspect is so important, you know, like Michelle said, you
Speaker 7: cannot assess somebody out of their culture because it's not
Speaker 7: going to make sense to them. I know one of
Speaker 7: my participants, her mother had a kind of dementia which
Speaker 7: is called fronto temporal dementia, and that tends to be
Speaker 7: quite common in the younger age group that's less than
Speaker 7: sixty five. And they were asking her questions about who's
Speaker 7: the Queen of England, and she was, what's my business
Speaker 7: with the Queen of England. You know, it doesn't mean
Speaker 7: that she has dementia because she doesn't know. We know
Speaker 7: that a lot of times is the short term memory
Speaker 7: that goes first and the longer term memory is there,
Speaker 7: so these people regress, So you know, I have to
Speaker 7: put it in context of the culture. Maybe at that
Speaker 7: stage it would have been useful to ask us something
Speaker 7: related to her culture in the past, and you could
Speaker 7: assess a little bit more strategically that way. But I
Speaker 7: was looking at caregivers of people with dementia because they've
Speaker 7: got triple whammy, quadruple whammy, the black ethnicity. Their caregivers
Speaker 7: and the fact that they're black ethnicity, their migrants in
Speaker 7: the UK permation, second generation migrants. And I was coming
Speaker 7: at it from the point of intersectionality, and what that
Speaker 7: is is the challenges that they face is not because
Speaker 7: they're black, or it's not because they're females, and it's
Speaker 7: not because they're migrants. It's a combination of everything. Lots
Speaker 7: of things chipping away at them and they become unwell,
Speaker 7: they have to look after their loved ones and it
Speaker 7: just dementia caregivers we know are second patients. Everybody who
Speaker 7: has dementia, you've got another patient who's looking after them.
Speaker 7: And if one in two people are going to get
Speaker 7: this disease or be a care of by twenty fifty,
Speaker 7: then it kind of works out that the entire population
Speaker 7: is going to be in trouble one way or the other.
Speaker 7: And what did I find that, Yes, we need to
Speaker 7: look at individuals in the context of their culture, in
Speaker 7: the context of their background, which is a very very
Speaker 7: big ask for the government. But at least we know
Speaker 7: and then we can start chipping at it bit by
Speaker 7: bits in different ways, even like this forum as well.
Speaker 3: Cool. Oh no, that sounds really interesting. It's really interesting
Speaker 3: as you were saying, I mean, the stats are quite
Speaker 3: alarming in terms of you know, you'll either be somebody
Speaker 3: who is living with the disease or you'll be caring
Speaker 3: for somebody. And again, you know, if you've got no
Speaker 3: idea about it, then you know, how are you going
Speaker 3: to be able to support that. So we're going to
Speaker 3: take a quick pause there, play some music, and then
Speaker 3: we're gonna come back and talk a little bit more
Speaker 3: about the idea of of you know, you mentioned about
Speaker 3: caregivers and actually how we can support them in a
Speaker 3: much better way to support those who are living with
Speaker 3: dementia Alzheimer's. So you're gonna pause for a piece of
Speaker 3: music here.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: Worldhand you willian that you're bresent.
Speaker 8: Now in your bit, we homely, bite, plan out.
Speaker 9: And worship, pray cham two birds worship weirdy how the mad.
Speaker 1: Let's pray and worship the worship.
Speaker 8: Let it turn into his game.
Speaker 10: It can gave him that he fadly to be play
Speaker 10: and we will lend his holy shame to fame.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're back here with talking points, and as usual,
Speaker 3: we're having a really great conversation about a really important topic.
Speaker 3: It's word Alzheimer's Day today, and we have our guests
Speaker 3: on us who are talking about their experiences and their
Speaker 3: insights into the world of dementia as it were, and Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: We've got Michelle Guthrie who is a counselor has her
Speaker 3: own experience that with her mother. And we have doctor
Speaker 3: Amonia Gasper who as a general practitioner obviously those who
Speaker 3: are living with dementia, but as also conducting research and
Speaker 3: we were just talking about her research into i suppose,
Speaker 3: the same community you mentioned, but also the role of
Speaker 3: the caregiver and the impacts on there. So it's interesting
Speaker 3: as we're going to you know, we're talking about and
Speaker 3: you said something just before there that when somebody has
Speaker 3: the diagnos of dementia and living with that, there are
Speaker 3: potentially two patients in a sense of the one person
Speaker 3: who is living with the disease and those who are
Speaker 3: caring for them and don't know. Just as we were
Speaker 3: kind of as we're behind the music there, you know,
Speaker 3: talking about actually the impact of that and impact on
Speaker 3: the loved one, the partner, the mother, the daughter, et cetera. So,
Speaker 3: and this is I guess, Michelle, where you come in
Speaker 3: in terms of your work as a therapist.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 3: I guess first though, to ask bess both of your
Speaker 3: kind of experience and you know, what, what is the
Speaker 3: impact for those who are caring for those who are
Speaker 3: living with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 6: No, it's very difficult. It can impact your life in
Speaker 6: so many different ways. I think as caregivers we struggle
Speaker 6: a lot. We get caught up in a feeling of
Speaker 6: guilt sometimes well not sometimes a lot of times resentment
Speaker 6: can set in, you know, because you're not able to
Speaker 6: spend time with your own family if you've got family,
Speaker 6: because you're so busy caught up worrying about your mum
Speaker 6: or your dad, whoever you're taking care of, So that
Speaker 6: becomes difficult. And then you're caught up in other struggles
Speaker 6: like what do I do? Do I keep my parents
Speaker 6: at home? Do I put them in a care home?
Speaker 6: And there's all of that going on in your mind,
Speaker 6: you know, dealing with that, the impact on all of that,
Speaker 6: And then you've got costs because supporting and caring for
Speaker 6: someone with dementia is very very costly. For them to
Speaker 6: go in a care home, you're probably looking at minimum
Speaker 6: one thousand pounds a week easily to one thousand to
Speaker 6: two thousand on average per week, which you know, you
Speaker 6: do the maths, it's like eight thousand pounds what six
Speaker 6: to eight thousand pounds a month? Who's got that kind
Speaker 6: of money readily available? If you keep your loved ones
Speaker 6: at home, it's who's going to be there to look
Speaker 6: after them? You know, if you're having to go to work,
Speaker 6: you can't. You may not necessarily be around to support
Speaker 6: your loved ones. So the other option there could be
Speaker 6: the possible ability of having a living care come in
Speaker 6: to look after your loved ones, but again that's very
Speaker 6: very expensive, and if you go to these care agencies
Speaker 6: sometimes you meet problems even in that respect because you're
Speaker 6: not necessarily going to get the best care of and
Speaker 6: not all careers are that good and have your your
Speaker 6: parents' interest at heart. And I'm talking from personal experience.
Speaker 6: You know, I've been through so many different care agencies,
Speaker 6: and We've had so many different cares in and I've
Speaker 6: had to sack the whole lot of them, honestly, and
Speaker 6: it's been heartbreaking for me, and it's been very very
Speaker 6: difficult for mum because you know, at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, I do admit, nobody can look after your
Speaker 6: loved ones in the way that you can. But at
Speaker 6: the same token, what do you do? So it becomes
Speaker 6: very difficult. And fortunately for me in my situation that
Speaker 6: I mean, now we've recently got a family member who's
Speaker 6: available and she is now taking care of Mom with
Speaker 6: her sister, and that's going remarkably well, thank god. But
Speaker 6: prior to that, it was it was just horrible. It
Speaker 6: was horrible. And you know, when you're paying out all
Speaker 6: this money every week or every month, you expect a
Speaker 6: certain level of care, but a lot of people just
Speaker 6: haven't got it in them, and you wonder why their
Speaker 6: care is in the first place, you know, So I
Speaker 6: was having to deal with all of that.
Speaker 2: I have a question with that question. I'm sorry, is
Speaker 2: there is there a help.
Speaker 5: From the government or there's like because I know, like
Speaker 5: as a care they don't give you that much if
Speaker 5: you're a care they don't give you that much a
Speaker 5: month to be a carer, right, a really small amount.
Speaker 6: Well, here's the here's the thing, petro Okay, it's all
Speaker 6: around finances, as you can appreciate. So if you have
Speaker 6: I think the figure is twenty three two hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty pounds in savings. Your mum or your dad, or
Speaker 6: whoever you're caring from, you have to fund all the
Speaker 6: care yourself. If you have less than that, you then
Speaker 6: have to go through what's called in the financial assessment
Speaker 6: through your local council and they ask you a million
Speaker 6: and one questions and even then you're not guaranteed to
Speaker 6: be successful with that, or if you are, they refer
Speaker 6: you to specific agencies that they have on their books
Speaker 6: and you have to take the cares from that particular agency,
Speaker 6: which may not necessarily be the best care for your
Speaker 6: parents or your loved one. And on top of that,
Speaker 6: they will only offer you so many hours a day.
Speaker 6: For example, they may come in for thirty to forty
Speaker 6: five minutes in the morning, popping again at lunchtime, and
Speaker 6: maybe again in the afternoon and if you're lucky, in
Speaker 6: the evening. But then what happens in the in between stages,
Speaker 6: particularly if you've got a parent that cannot be left
Speaker 6: on their own, like, for example, my mum can't be
Speaker 6: left on her own. Somebody has to be with her
Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. You
Speaker 6: know she needs support on every level, so it's difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I can definitely testify to that, you know,
Speaker 3: again having gone through sort of lots of different care
Speaker 3: options which I often say it worked until it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: similar experiences, you know, we different care agencies, different care
Speaker 3: you know, people are offering care, and I sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: you have to wonder because I kind of think, what
Speaker 3: do you do to kind of get this role? You know,
Speaker 3: when you had your interview, you know, in respect to anybody,
Speaker 3: but you have to wonder. But I can imagine all
Speaker 3: of this, and I know for myself there's a lot
Speaker 3: of stress anxiety around kind of managing that, and ultimately
Speaker 3: you want to you want to offer the support, the
Speaker 3: best support that you can. As you mentioned that, feelings
Speaker 3: of guilt and kind of feeling that you've not you know,
Speaker 3: you're not good enough to do it and you've not
Speaker 3: been able to manage well enough definitely an impact. And
Speaker 3: now I've often felt that and many times as thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't. You know, I'd never like to
Speaker 3: think that I'm a superwoman, but sometimes you kind of think, oh,
Speaker 3: I really want to do this because I think it's
Speaker 3: going to be the best thing. But you know, ultimately
Speaker 3: you're kind of potentially just going to burn yourself out.
Speaker 3: I'm sure both of you seen, you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: your own personal experience or you know you've seen you know,
Speaker 3: your patients or your clients come in and with that.
Speaker 3: So what's been the sort of you know, I mean
Speaker 3: when you sort of see what's what would you say
Speaker 3: then is going to be the key thing? Because I
Speaker 3: guess if were and you know, they see this analogy
Speaker 3: in many different things. You know, if you aren't well
Speaker 3: within yourself, how can you then help somebody else?
Speaker 2: You know, you're on a.
Speaker 3: Plane, you know, if there's an emergency, you put on
Speaker 3: your own kind of oxygen mask first for you help
Speaker 3: somebody else. So you know, how can how do you know,
Speaker 3: support caregivers and what kind of can make the difference
Speaker 3: for them in terms of the journey that they are
Speaker 3: on as well?
Speaker 6: You know, So in my counsel in practice that I have,
Speaker 6: I can support caregivers on a one to one and
Speaker 6: boy do some of them need it because in the
Speaker 6: situation that they find themselves in. Not so much for me,
Speaker 6: it didn't happen with me admittingly, but in the situation
Speaker 6: they find themselves in, it can be a very lonely road.
Speaker 6: It can be very very lonely. Very often they have
Speaker 6: nobody to talk to, and sometimes until you're actually in it,
Speaker 6: you don't really understand, and that in itself can be
Speaker 6: quite stressful. And you know, what do you do? Where
Speaker 6: do you turn to? It's just so so difficult. Nobody
Speaker 6: turns around and says to you, Angela, how are you?
Speaker 6: How are you feeling? Nobody asks you any of these questions.
Speaker 6: On top of having to deal with your loved one.
Speaker 6: It can be absolutely frustrating. And as a result, I
Speaker 6: find people come to me and they have depression, They
Speaker 6: have high levels of anxiety, stress, stress, burnout because they
Speaker 6: just feel really alone in this journey. And I don't
Speaker 6: think anybody should be made to feel alone, but people
Speaker 6: are not always there for them. And sometimes even within
Speaker 6: your own families, you know, they could be three four,
Speaker 6: five siblings, but ultimately what happens, all the care and
Speaker 6: responsibility lies on one person within the family because the
Speaker 6: other siblings don't necessarily want to take responsibility for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: and that in itself leads to frustration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I guess as well, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: with all of that I'm sure there is and ammonia.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you can attest to this in terms of
Speaker 3: the physical health problems that may be a caregiver may
Speaker 3: be facing as well. You know from the you know
Speaker 3: from the stress can present itself in so many different ways.
Speaker 3: I know that from personal experience. And again, you know,
Speaker 3: if they're not well, how are they then expected to
Speaker 3: look after somebody else? But you know, you kind of
Speaker 3: keep going and keep going. I mean, do you find
Speaker 3: that you have patients that do come in and often
Speaker 3: when you kind of you talk to them initially and
Speaker 3: then they suddenly reveal that they're a caregiver that sometimes
Speaker 3: like ah, it's all kind of makes sense, Angela.
Speaker 7: I think a certain kind of personality becomes a career.
Speaker 7: Like Michelle said, you can have a family of five
Speaker 7: or three siblings, but one person will always step up,
Speaker 7: not because they've been mandated to do it, but because
Speaker 7: they've volunteered on their own to do it. And a
Speaker 7: lot of times there's different kind of cares. If you're
Speaker 7: caring for a parent, it's almost for many people it's
Speaker 7: a privilege to care for their parents, and they don't
Speaker 7: anticipate how hard it's going to be caring is a tough,
Speaker 7: tough job, but caring for somebody with dementia is the
Speaker 7: toughest of all the caregiving jobs. It's easy to care
Speaker 7: for somebody who's had a stroke or a diabetes, or
Speaker 7: a car accident or cancer or name it or altitude
Speaker 7: of illnesses out there, but a caregiver for somebody with
Speaker 7: dementia is the toughest of all the caregiving jobs. And
Speaker 7: like I said, it takes a certain personality. When it's
Speaker 7: a child's parent, intergenerational, a lot of times the caregiver
Speaker 7: doesn't identify as a career So that's one problem on
Speaker 7: its own. You know, you're like, it's my mum, I'm
Speaker 7: supposed to do it, or it's my dad. But the
Speaker 7: challenge that you're faced with in caregiving it's not for
Speaker 7: the fainthearted, and it's not a walk in the park.
Speaker 7: I'm not saying that it's wrong to do it, but
Speaker 7: you must learn to ask for help and to accept help.
Speaker 7: You can do it, especially in the early stages of
Speaker 7: the illness, but as the illness progresses, there is grief.
Speaker 7: You're losing your loved one. You know, you don't know
Speaker 7: this person. They look like your mum or dad. They
Speaker 7: sound like your mum or dad, but you don't know
Speaker 7: this person, so there's that grief before they actually pass away,
Speaker 7: and that can go on for years and years and years.
Speaker 7: So caregivers often have a lot of burnout. You've mentioned
Speaker 7: a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, but a
Speaker 7: lot of them don't even accept that their careers, so
Speaker 7: it's difficult. And how do you say to someone you
Speaker 7: need to take time out for yourself. The common response
Speaker 7: you get, well, who's going to do it? Very valid question,
Speaker 7: especially if all the services aren't in place yet, and
Speaker 7: it's not like the care homes are, you know, grabbing
Speaker 7: patients off the streets. They've got their hands full and
Speaker 7: a lot of care homes aren't necessarily appropriate for your
Speaker 7: loved one. So it's a very difficult road. But they
Speaker 7: must learn that, like you said, you've got to put
Speaker 7: your oxygen mask on before you put them, not because
Speaker 7: you don't love them, but you can only give what
Speaker 7: you've got.
Speaker 4: That's a quick question here, maybe going off topic a
Speaker 4: little bit, but you've said that dementia is one of
Speaker 4: being a carer for someone with dementia as one of
Speaker 4: the hardest jobs of all, and hearing in itself is
Speaker 4: a difficult job. And I say job, but it's often unpaid.
Speaker 4: Is it because there's an element of denial? Is it
Speaker 4: because it's a it's a mental it can be a
Speaker 4: mental illness. Is that what makes it a hard aspect
Speaker 4: because I know a lot of people who struggle with
Speaker 4: mental illnesses or dementia and that sort don't accept that
Speaker 4: it's happening, you know, don't want the care that may
Speaker 4: be required, and so you're always there's often a battle
Speaker 4: going on even before you even get started about whether
Speaker 4: you should go to the doctor, whether you should get assessed,
Speaker 4: whether you should get the care and assistance you need.
Speaker 4: Because most times it's like I'm okay, and fine, why
Speaker 4: are you here? Why are you doing this?
Speaker 7: It's a bit of all of that. There. Certainly there
Speaker 7: is denial, but with dementia caregiving which is the hardest
Speaker 7: caregiving and there's lots of research on it. But apart
Speaker 7: from the denial, there is what you call anticipatory grief. Okay,
Speaker 7: so you're grieving the person is in front of you,
Speaker 7: but you're already grieving, like losing someone, you're somebody is
Speaker 7: you slowly lose, and you know, one part of your
Speaker 7: brain recognizes that, and another part of your brain is fighting.
Speaker 7: You know, hope is the last to go. You're trying
Speaker 7: very hard. Maybe if I do this, maybe if I
Speaker 7: sleep with them, maybe if I give them spinach juice
Speaker 7: every morning, maybe if I You know you and you
Speaker 7: can't stop trying, and nobody can ask you to stop trying,
Speaker 7: But all we can ask is take care of yourself,
Speaker 7: because it gets to a point that your loved one
Speaker 7: doesn't even recognize five minutes later, they don't know if
Speaker 7: you've been there or not. Yeah, it's cool, but it's
Speaker 7: the reality.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 7: You know, you're not going to get any brownie points.
Speaker 8: Hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really interesting because I know sometimes it's interesting
Speaker 3: you say that because I think you have to that
Speaker 3: in itself is a real learning process, because you want
Speaker 3: to give as much as you can and actually the
Speaker 3: reality of it, and you know, I know sometimes you know,
Speaker 3: my sister will sometimes say, you know, you just have
Speaker 3: to accept the way things are. It's not going to
Speaker 3: be like that. But I know sometimes I get LOLd
Speaker 3: into this maybe false sense of security that things seem
Speaker 3: quite normal momentarily, and then it completely changes, and it's
Speaker 3: just like, oh, actually, you know that kind of acceptance
Speaker 3: piece as to what it is, because as much as
Speaker 3: I may read about it and I try to educate myself,
Speaker 3: when you're actually in it seems a very different. It
Speaker 3: seems very different. So you know when you're experiencing and
Speaker 3: you know that in itself is yeah, the challenge there
Speaker 3: as well. So I guess you know, what kind of
Speaker 3: practical advice would we you know, can we give to
Speaker 3: caregivers as to what they can do to be more
Speaker 3: effective I suppose in their caregiving journey. And I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I'm saying all that. I'm sure there's no if they
Speaker 3: could be one hundred and one different things, but are
Speaker 3: their keys that they could do that's going to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, adds as well just as a follow one. That's
Speaker 4: what we can prepare to answer. What can what advice
Speaker 4: can we give persons who are struggling with the disease?
Speaker 4: Is there anyway to or best the best practice in
Speaker 4: terms of managing it or slowing down the process or
Speaker 4: anything like that.
Speaker 7: We diagnosed follow onto the early diagnosis. If you catch
Speaker 7: it early, A lot of times part of the struggle
Speaker 7: is just the pain and the grief of losing one's
Speaker 7: loved one. The other fifty is are we going to
Speaker 7: manage one? Income is not enough, who's going to look
Speaker 7: after them? Logistics of actually caring for them? But with
Speaker 7: early diagnosis, lots of things can be put in place.
Speaker 7: Have they got the power of attorney? Who's topic affairs?
Speaker 7: Mom didn't tell me about everything that's going on. Now
Speaker 7: all her affairs are in a mess. You're backling with
Speaker 7: your grief of losing your dementia, but you're getting read
Speaker 7: letters through the door. You don't know which one you're
Speaker 7: focusing on, you know, So early diagnosis is key. It
Speaker 7: doesn't stop the disease, but in some instances can you
Speaker 7: can get help in terms of sometimes medication, the support
Speaker 7: services to kind of slow down the progression of the disease.
Speaker 7: And then for people who are not necessarily cares. Know
Speaker 7: your numbers, the number of people you say, what's your
Speaker 7: blood pressure? And or when did you do your blood
Speaker 7: pressure last? And you know, and we're all very busy people.
Speaker 7: We don't nobody wants to sit around checking blood pressure
Speaker 7: and all of that. But it's something so simple that
Speaker 7: you can check your blood pressure and if it's high,
Speaker 7: you can get medication for it, and it can be
Speaker 7: well controlled before it starts knocking off all your organs,
Speaker 7: your kidney, your nerves, your brain, everything in its path.
Speaker 7: You know, when last did anyone get their eye tests?
Speaker 7: When last did you get your hearing tests? Tests and
Speaker 7: hearing tests are the two new additions to the WHO
Speaker 7: criteria of risk factors for dementia. Wow, not communicating. If
Speaker 7: you can't hear what's going on around you, you withdraw
Speaker 7: into yourself. There's less mental stimulation. When last did anyone
Speaker 7: get their eye test? When did they? You know you
Speaker 7: wear glasses apart from going for your usual which a
Speaker 7: lot of people don't do. And last did you get
Speaker 7: a dental check?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, looking and living and doing every other thing except
Speaker 7: really taking so know your numbers, especially with people who
Speaker 7: are risk for vascular dementia. If your blood sugars are high,
Speaker 7: then you're asking for trouble. You know, that's the top
Speaker 7: risk factor. If your blood pressure is high, your blood
Speaker 7: pressure might be perfect, but if you've got family history,
Speaker 7: if your mum and dad have blood pressure, it's a
Speaker 7: question of when not if well if not when, so
Speaker 7: know your numbers is important for that and you know,
Speaker 7: we just we're in a society now where everything is
Speaker 7: twenty four to seven. When I was growing up in Nigerian,
Speaker 7: I remember when I first moved here. I'll tell you
Speaker 7: a very funny story. I was busy doing everything quickly
Speaker 7: quickly in the house, taking care of children before six o'clock.
Speaker 7: And my friends were like, why are you rushing? You
Speaker 7: can do it later. I said, no, that it'll soon
Speaker 7: get dark. Then there's no light to do anything, so
Speaker 7: it WANs to go to bed early. You know, the
Speaker 7: day kind of stops when the sun goes down. I
Speaker 7: should be maybe, but it saves your brain. You know,
Speaker 7: you stop at a certain points. You go to bed
Speaker 7: when you should go to bed. Now two o'clock in
Speaker 7: the morning, some of us are working, yeah, and it's
Speaker 7: not healthy, or we're on our phones, or we're doing
Speaker 7: one thing or the other because we can.
Speaker 4: I hear these conversations all the time, and it's funny
Speaker 4: we hear them. We know what we should do, but
Speaker 4: we just don't quite or we start on the path
Speaker 4: of doing it. Let's say every New Year or whatever
Speaker 4: it might be. Or after a conversation like this, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go back and I'm like, okay, my
Speaker 4: phone gets shut off at ten blah blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 4: And slowly the band had its creep in again, and
Speaker 4: you again. This is why conversation like this was so important,
Speaker 4: because if it's not new information, it's reminding us these
Speaker 4: are the things that we need to do. And if
Speaker 4: you pay attention and you put things into practice, it
Speaker 4: can help.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And one thing I learned. One thing I learned, I'm
Speaker 5: sorry to cut you off thinking about that. I had
Speaker 5: a bad habit of having a TV in my bedroom
Speaker 5: because in the States, you know, TV's in the bedroom,
Speaker 5: and I would always go to bed three four in
Speaker 5: the morning because I'm so busy watching the show and
Speaker 5: even though I watched the show before, I'm still watching
Speaker 5: the show. So one day I find I said to wife,
Speaker 5: you know, we need to take this TV out this room.
Speaker 5: And ever since I take it out of the bedroom,
Speaker 5: I sleep better. Yeah, because when I get and I
Speaker 5: lay down, I actually lay down and go to sleep,
Speaker 5: like I use the bedroom just for sleeping and I
Speaker 5: spend one time, I used to be in my bedroom
Speaker 5: a lot watching TV, and I don't go to my
Speaker 5: bedroom at all until it's time to go to sleep.
Speaker 5: So I did find that taking the TV out did
Speaker 5: help me too, and I felt myself also my brain
Speaker 5: also functioning better because I just be so foggy and
Speaker 5: face and hazy in the morning, and I was like, this,
Speaker 5: can't I got to do something different. So on that
Speaker 5: point of you just saying, you know, just changing your
Speaker 5: lifestyle a little bit in a sense consistent yeah, and
Speaker 5: being consistent yeah, because I still get the urge every
Speaker 5: now and then to put a TV back in the bedroom,
Speaker 5: but then I say no, you.
Speaker 2: Know what, I'm okay.
Speaker 7: So they've got often younger children or younger dependents, they've
Speaker 7: got full time jobs and then watch to go with
Speaker 7: mom or dad. But even harder are caregivers for spouses.
Speaker 7: For a parent, you almost expect to want to do
Speaker 7: that to an extent, but you know, all respect to
Speaker 7: caregivers for spouses, it's a completely different relationship and it's tough.
Speaker 4: That from your research is that some of the stuff
Speaker 4: that came out.
Speaker 7: Of what you your doves into absolutely and a lot
Speaker 7: of them were very grateful for the opportunity to be
Speaker 7: able to say that, to be able to talk honestly,
Speaker 7: I'm saying it's hard. It's just how sometimes they they
Speaker 7: feel resentments because they don't love their spouse.
Speaker 1: But why do I have to do this?
Speaker 7: Mhm. You know sometimes some people said they you know,
Speaker 7: they wish they were dead, and they feel very guilty
Speaker 7: for thinking that way, but not from a bad place.
Speaker 7: It's too much.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, as you said that, that kind of you know,
Speaker 3: the opportunity to talk. And I guess this was a
Speaker 3: segue nicely into the group that Michelle you've set up,
Speaker 3: because I guess one of the really key things is
Speaker 3: having a space to be able to have those kind
Speaker 3: of conversations in a space, but also being with people
Speaker 3: who kind of have an understanding of that. A little
Speaker 3: bit about the group that you've set up.
Speaker 6: Okay, So when my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer's early
Speaker 6: last year, I thought to myself, if I'm having to
Speaker 6: go through this, what must it be like for other
Speaker 6: people as well who have no support. So I went
Speaker 6: to bed one night and a light bulb was set
Speaker 6: off in my mind and I thought, right, I'm going
Speaker 6: to get up and form a dementia support group for
Speaker 6: people of African Caribbean descent, because I do think that
Speaker 6: our needs are slightly different, and I think there are
Speaker 6: support groups out there for English people Caucasians, but there's
Speaker 6: something about us Black African have being comeing together that
Speaker 6: I think is really important. So I decided to set
Speaker 6: up this support group and I called it the Naya
Speaker 6: a Coma Support Group. Okay, so let me just tell
Speaker 6: you a little bit about the meaning of nya a
Speaker 6: coma and what it means. Nya Acoma is a Swahili name,
Speaker 6: but it's also used in Ghana as well. So Nya
Speaker 6: nya means purpose having purpose, okay, which I thought is
Speaker 6: important for me to have a sense of purpose even
Speaker 6: though I'm supporting Mom with her on her dementia journey.
Speaker 6: I then came up with the word a coma and
Speaker 6: it means from the heart. So to be a good caregiver,
Speaker 6: I think you have to have patience, love, unity, and
Speaker 6: an element of endurance. Okay. So those two things together
Speaker 6: Naya a coma. So I thought, right, that's the name
Speaker 6: of my group, and that's high birthed it basically, And
Speaker 6: then I thought, what is it that I want my
Speaker 6: group to achieve? And I thought, A, I want a
Speaker 6: sense of community connection. So other Black African Caribbeans can
Speaker 6: come together be sharing of resources because I don't have
Speaker 6: all the answers, none of us have all the answers,
Speaker 6: so sharing the resources in our group, we can learn
Speaker 6: so much from each other. And then I thought it's
Speaker 6: a way of giving emotional support as well, because admittedly
Speaker 6: not everybody has the finances or means to go out
Speaker 6: and pay a counselor for one to one support. So
Speaker 6: I thought, you know, we could have a bit of
Speaker 6: emotional support within the group. So they're the three main
Speaker 6: areas that I look at in all my support group meetings.
Speaker 6: That's what I hope to achieve. So I started the group.
Speaker 6: I think it was January this year, and I must admit,
Speaker 6: for me, it's far exceeded what I can imagine what
Speaker 6: I could have ever hoped for. So it's not about
Speaker 6: quantity in terms of numbers, but it's about quality. And
Speaker 6: you know what I find really humbling is I have
Speaker 6: people on the Zoom that come from the Caribbean, people
Speaker 6: here in the UK, Yeah, the Caribbean UK, and yeah,
Speaker 6: we're all over, So it's open to anyone in every
Speaker 6: country because it is a Zoom meeting. And I'm really,
Speaker 6: really find I get a lot out of it. And
Speaker 6: when do my meetings finish, I get such lovely emails
Speaker 6: say from people saying, you know, oh I could do
Speaker 6: I could do it this on a weekly basis, for example,
Speaker 6: But I don't have the capacity to run the group
Speaker 6: every week. But it's a beginning. It's a step in
Speaker 6: the right direction. And what I tried to do is
Speaker 6: where possible get a guest to speaker on, a Black
Speaker 6: African or Caribbean professional in to come and talk about
Speaker 6: their areas and share with the group. So that's where
Speaker 6: I met Ammonia. She's a GP, she's interested in dementia
Speaker 6: and she came on and she spoke At the last
Speaker 6: meeting I had. Okay, a previous meeting I had, I
Speaker 6: had a lovely woman come on and she showed the
Speaker 6: participants how to breathe correctly. You know the importance of
Speaker 6: correct breathing because believe it or not, if you're not
Speaker 6: breathing correctly, it causes a lot more tension and stressing
Speaker 6: the body. At my next dementia support meeting on the
Speaker 6: third of October, I have a Black Admiral nurse. Admire
Speaker 6: nurses are She lists the mentioned nurses, So she will
Speaker 6: be coming on to tell the group how they can
Speaker 6: benefit from talking to an admiral nurse. And the service
Speaker 6: is free. You know, there's a free phone number seven
Speaker 6: days a week and if you're your witsend, or you're
Speaker 6: feeling absolutely frustrated, or you've got no one to talk to,
Speaker 6: you just ring this admiral nurse. And I must admit
Speaker 6: I've ran them a few times myself in the past,
Speaker 6: and I've always come off the phone feeling a lot
Speaker 6: lighter and a lot better than how I was feeling
Speaker 6: before I made the call. So I think that support
Speaker 6: is of p It's of paramount importance. We need the support.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I can definitely testify to that. And you
Speaker 3: know that's again how I know I've met you, Michelle.
Speaker 3: Obviously being part of this group, I've been able to
Speaker 3: make all the sessions and unfortunately I missed the one
Speaker 3: with pneumonia, but definitely kind of, you know, been able
Speaker 3: to speak with other people to hear there is it
Speaker 3: sounds almost strange to say this, almost a bit of
Speaker 3: comfort to know that you're not the only person who's
Speaker 3: going through this and you can kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: you can relate so much, and I've kind of tried
Speaker 3: to join as many groups or get involved in and
Speaker 3: I've got there's a care as support network at my workplace,
Speaker 3: and again a lot of you know, there's quite a
Speaker 3: few spar staff members who again have got their own
Speaker 3: experience around dementia, and you know, the kind of comfort
Speaker 3: and encouragement they can kind of provide, or even I've
Speaker 3: been able to provide, you know, just talking about my
Speaker 3: own experience to other people. Again, in my local area,
Speaker 3: there's been a few support groups as well. I know
Speaker 3: I was supported by a mind and never mind, I
Speaker 3: think it was as well, and I had a support
Speaker 3: where I could be checking in and what have you
Speaker 3: for the first couple of years and stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's definitely definitely really important, and you know, the opportunity
Speaker 3: to kind of just talk about what's going going on,
Speaker 3: because as I think both of you have both said,
Speaker 3: unless you're in it, you don't really stand and you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of think, you know, sometimes people are very
Speaker 3: well meaning, but often and you know, and I sort
Speaker 3: of say this in terms of, you know, depending on
Speaker 3: the different types of communities that you're in, sometimes people
Speaker 3: kind of shy away from checking in on you when
Speaker 3: sometimes you need people the most. Sometimes they think I'm
Speaker 3: not really quite sure what to say, or you know,
Speaker 3: they're probably okay, you know, and I kind of think
Speaker 3: sometimes a simple phone call or a simple text can
Speaker 3: just make so much of a difference. And you know,
Speaker 3: obviously as Christians as well, you know, we're coming from
Speaker 3: that perspective as well. Sometimes you know, our own kinds
Speaker 3: of communities, our own other members around us sometimes don't
Speaker 3: even do that as well as they could do as well.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot more that possibly could be done
Speaker 3: in that respect. So yeah, the support, the support is
Speaker 3: definitely needed, you know. And I think as well the
Speaker 3: idea around education for caregivers themselves, you know, because everybody
Speaker 3: you know, I know, I've sometimes shared resources and I
Speaker 3: you know, I can talk, you know, we can all
Speaker 3: talk about where we've got support from and where you
Speaker 3: can access stuff, you know, and that Michelle, you know,
Speaker 3: I've spoken to you know, the Admiral nurses and again,
Speaker 3: just when you kind of think I just need someone
Speaker 3: to talk to, especially as you mentioned, sometimes when you're
Speaker 3: doing things on your own, you know, you feel like
Speaker 3: you're not even like I know, I work from home,
Speaker 3: so sometimes it feels like I've got no one else
Speaker 3: to talk to because there's no one else in the house.
Speaker 3: You know, if my mom isn't here, then it's just me. So,
Speaker 3: you know, when you're feeling very frustrated or just you know,
Speaker 3: having a bad day in terms of what you're doing,
Speaker 3: just being able to pick up the phone speak to
Speaker 3: somebody who can give you that sort of reinsurance and
Speaker 3: encouragement is you know, absolutely, absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And I know in some borrows will certainly when
Speaker 6: my mum lives in Croydon, they have like a care
Speaker 6: and support for them and they meet three times a week.
Speaker 6: They have a coffee morning. I think it's between nine
Speaker 6: and twelve, and it's a drop in and you go
Speaker 6: there and you meet people and you can sit and
Speaker 6: have a chat to them. You don't even have to
Speaker 6: go back if you don't want to. You just drop
Speaker 6: in as and when you feel like it. But I've
Speaker 6: been to a few and it's quite welcoming. You know,
Speaker 6: would you like a cup of tea? Would you like
Speaker 6: some biscuits? And before you know it, you're chatting to
Speaker 6: other people that are going through exactly what you're going through. However,
Speaker 6: on saying that that only works if you can get
Speaker 6: out the house and leave the person that you're caring for.
Speaker 6: So if you can't, I always think the second best
Speaker 6: thing is the Admiral nurse because that's a fune caller way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also the beauty of something that grew your group. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and actually, you know, I guess that's probably one of
Speaker 3: the I could hardly say it's a benefit of COVID,
Speaker 3: but the actual realization that we can use our technology effectively,
Speaker 3: you know, and obviously been able to kind of join
Speaker 3: a zoom call, you know, to be able to connect
Speaker 3: you know, it's definitely definitely something that can be done.
Speaker 3: So that's another way of making those connections there as well.
Speaker 3: I know, as you've mentioned about support, I did check
Speaker 3: in with the manager of the day center that their
Speaker 3: mum goes to. And again it's another area because I know,
Speaker 3: not only do they support the service users there who
Speaker 3: are living with dementia, but again and one of the
Speaker 3: things that you know, Karen mentioned was the fact that
Speaker 3: actually it's there for service for the caregivers and the
Speaker 3: families as well. And I know, again I've experienced, you know,
Speaker 3: I've sort of gone there visibly quite stressed and distressed,
Speaker 3: and you know the kind of hugs or encouraging words
Speaker 3: that they've provided has definitely so you know, we'll hear
Speaker 3: a bit more from her with regards to that as well.
Speaker 3: Adventist Radio London inspiration with the song
Speaker 8: MHM