An initiative to make Marlborough a dementia friendly community

Dementia Friends is an initiative to help people get a better understanding of what dementia means and how to respond positively to those living with dementia.  Sue Harper is championing the initiative in the Marlborough area and has already led a successful information session in Avebury.

On Monday, May 19 she is holding an information session at the Jubilee Centre in the High Street – starting at 7.15pm for an hour.  The idea is not to ask people to befriend those with dementia, but to understand their needs and learn how we can all help make their lives better.

Dementia Friends is an Alzheimer’s Society initiative funded by the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office as part of the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia.

There are several key points Dementia Friends aims to get across: dementia is not part of getting old – it is a disease caused by physical changes in the brain.  These changes affect different people in different ways – so we should not treat all those with dementia in the same way.

Sue told MNO one way to help is to make high streets more dementia-friendly – just as we have made many of them disability-friendly: “People with early dementia – and it’s an umbrella term that covers several conditions including Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia – feel isolated, they lose their confidence and then they don’t go out.”

Encouraging understanding and improving inclusion in communities helps those living with dementia live well and there are plenty of small things we can all do that matter to those with the condition.  One important way to start understanding the disease is to realise that the condition can vary from day to day: “Some days are sunny, some are foggy.”

The target is to sign up one million Dementia Friends by 2015.

That ‘one million’ is an important figure – medical experts estimate that in less than ten years one million people in the United Kingdom will have dementia.

Sue Harper knows about the needs of those living with dementia and the need to understand them. After a career in social services, she’s run the private care home Marlborough Lodge on the London Road since 2002.  It has 17 rooms and a large staff.

When MNO visited Sue it was hairdressing day for the ladies and smiles were everywhere.  You only have to look at last autumn’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) report to know this is a good place to be.

Marlborough Lodge ticked all the CQC’s boxes and their report quoted glowing interviews with staff, residents and visitors.

One relative picked out the “Proper home cooked food, just as Dad likes it.”   Another told the CQC: “Marlborough Lodge is fantastic.  It is not about the building, it is about the people in it. You can feel the kindness here…I am supported. They invest in me as well, I feel as though I matter too.”

Sue Harper believes that “If you’re going to deliver person-centred care you need to make sure it’s funded. We need to have enough trained staff to be able to spend time with our residents.”

The CQC report also commended the way residents can choose to help with chores – the inspector saw a resident pairing washed socks and another peeling the potatoes for lunch.

It is those little things that matter – and which Dementia Friends seeks to establish as the norm for all our contacts with people with the various conditions known as dementia.