Tag Archives: children

Five tips on how to talk to kids about dementia

Posted on by under Education, Inspiration

This informative article comes from a website called The Conversation. It’s a great piece that summarizes how to talk to kids about dementia. How do they know how to talk to kids about dementia? I’m glad you asked 🙂

The author is Jess Baker, PhD, is a lecturer in psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She was inspired by Alzheimer’s Australia’s national survey on dementia awareness that was published in September, 2014, and the result that dementia reported low awareness and understanding about dementia. She noticed that children’s attitudes and awareness about dementia have never been measured in Australia.

She decided to make some focus group studies and interviewed over 40 children. She also showed them short clips of people with dementia and asked them what they thought. These videos are part of a UNSW project that is taking action to create a more dementia-friendly society by educating the next generation, since breaking down stigma starts with education. One of the goals of the project is to use the information from the focus groups to create an online education program that fits in with Australia’s education program.

So, interested to know what she found?

Continue reading →

10 lessons learned from people with dementia

Posted on by under Inspiration

I was happy to come across this post on Huffington Post. I was just talking with Dan Mogensen from MindBuddy about how I would like to make a documentary that highlights some of the good things about dementia (philosophical views of personhood, perception of reality, changing viewpoints, mindfulness, humor, challenging individuals and society to accept and care for people who have different cognitive processes, increased focus on quality of life, etc. – we talked about a lot of things).

While this article isn’t necessarily focused on these ideas, I like (and think it’s important) that there is a growing trend in not focusing on the doom and gloom of dementia. Life doesn’t end with a dementia diagnosis. A person’s personhood and personality don’t end with a dementia diagnosis. Relationships and social meaning don’t end with a dementia diagnosis. They will take new forms and meanings, and will give new insights if we take the time to notice. Continue reading →