Dementia Friends, Safety Awareness

Chief Fire Officer Des Tidbury hosts a talk on fire safety awareness

As part of my ongoing project with Dementia Friends I went to another event in Truro. This event was about Safety Awareness within the community hosted by Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service along with Alzheimers Society. They covered a variety of issues that can occur especially with Dementia patients, this included missing persons, doorstep fraud, scam mail, fire safety and discrimination. Many of the talkers had relatives with the illness and the audience were mainly carers, firemen and a few with Dementia as well. 

Young Fire Officers watching the talks

Martyn Addinall watching the talks so that he can be more aware in his service

D&C Police David Trout talking about missing persons
and what to do if someone with an illness is lost

Shirley Mewton gives a talk on behalf of Alzheimer's Society about the charity
and also give information on Dementia Friends

Keith Scambor has early stages of Dementia and was at the event
with his wife who has the illness as well. They came along to
be more aware about fire safety in their home

Dementia Friends

For part of my self directed assignment and a much bigger project I have got involved with Dementia Friends and Alzheimers Society in helping to raise awareness for the charity and those in need. In 2012 David Cameron launched a scheme with these charities to give the public free training in helping those with Dementia and also to pass on awareness to others. Over 700,000 people are affected in the Uk and Cameron has said that dementia is a national crisis and the awareness of it is shockingly low. It is the goal that by 2015 the government would like 1 million people to become a Dementia Friend, this 2.4 billion charity is one of few to be funded by the Social Fund and Department of Health. It does not ask for donations only to raise awareness. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20236034

Camilla Alfred teaching them how to present well with various techniques

Phillipa works for Age Uk Cornwall and wants to raise awareness in her community
as she feels the public doesn't understand the complexities of Dementia

I have started to document the events that Dementia Friends hold, this includes Dementia Awareness Training, Fire Safety and Memory Cafes. I want to show the journey that the public goes on to become a Dementia Friend and also document those with the illness as well. This event was a general training session where carers and company staff came along to learn what they need to do to raise awareness. Camilla Alfred a volunteer was leading the session and she has worked with the charity since it started. 
There were a variety of people at this event including managers of local company Farm Foods as they wanted to train their drivers in being Dementia Friendly as some of their clients have the illness. The others were nurses and carers at various elderly care homes and they all found the session helpful in what they needed. Camilla taught them initially about what is Dementia and many techniques in how to show others what it is and how to pass along the awareness to their local churches and companies. 

The class have to make a list of  all the stages of making a cup of tea which is
an exercise in seeing what you'd do if you had Dementia. 

They played Dementia Friends Bingo, which was to show which words the public
associate with Dementia like 'memory' and 'disease' 

Hayley is a care assistant at Porthwagan Home in Liskaerd,
she hopes to raise awareness in her village and at work

Lorraine works for Farm Foods as a product promoter and she hopes to
raise awareness to her drivers as some of their clients have Dementia

Alzheimer's & Dementia,

For my five picture story project I chose the subject of an old woman with arthritis who lives on her own. I looked at other photographers that focused on other diseases older people are prone to. I also looked at other articles that I thought depicted fragility.

The first one I looked at was about photographer Mark Edwards who captures his and his mums journey through her having the terrible illness of Alzheimers. This story is his way of coping and it helps to understand what she's going through. He also wants to raise awareness with these images and help other families who have an elderly relative with this horrible disease. 'The father-of three wants the images to help shed light on a disease that he said has been 'left in the shadows.' He said: 'Alzheimer's is a devastating disease as it takes away the very soul of someone. This issue is too often locked away and there just isn't the same amount of research and funding as there is for something like cancer.'

This article really spoke to me in raising awareness of how alone old people are, especially when they have these illnesses, this was really heartwarming as at least she had support, some people do not unfortunately.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1362475/Alzheimers-disease-Portrait-dementias-effect-photographers-mother.html
The images are beautiful and the tones really contrast well.

  


The other article I found was one about a Dementia ward where the journalist tells about his mother who also suffers from this illness. The photographer Maja Daniels and writer Andrea Gillies reflects on the journey
there and what lies beyond the locked door. It's an interesting piece where they document the patients and compare them to Andrea's own mother-in-law Nancy. He sees that she has a better life in her nursing home as this one is very different.

'I think that Nancy has a better life than the people pictured in this dementia ward. That is to say, the obvious aesthetic conditions are better than this world of grey paint, ugliness and hard surfaces. The tiled and shiny floor pictured here is about giving the staf.f an easier life, not the residents. It’s easy to connect the evident distress of some of these people with the prison-like austerity of their surroundings

The images are well shot in unique ways, sometimes not showing faces which shows more mystery aabout the ward. They show the hard living these old people have and the fact that these places are like prisons. The patients have Dementia so are confused about surroundings and ofren try to break out of the ward.