Trumpet Media Group has thrown its weight behind the Alzheimer’s Society’s and Public Health England’s Dementia Friends initiative which seeks to recruit a million ‘dementia friends’ to support the growing number of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Of the 665,000 people in England and Wales living with dementia, it is estimated that approximately 25,000 are from ethnic minority communities. This figure is expected to rise significantly as the ethnic minority population ages - by 2026, it is likely to have doubled to nearly 50,000 and by 2051 to over 172,000 – representing a seven-fold increase in 40 years.
It is likely that dementia is more common among African Caribbean communities. This is because high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart disease, which are risk factors for dementia, are more common among these ethnic groups.
Evidence suggests that there are lower levels of awareness and higher levels of stigma among some ethnic minority groups - the disease is often associated with ‘madness’ and there is no equivalent word for dementia in some African languages. Also evidence suggests that African Caribbeans present to their doctors for diagnosis much later than their white counterparts, by which time the disease has become more severe.
Dementia is caused by diseases of the brain. There are over 100 types of dementia and the most common is Alzheimer’s. It mainly affects (but is not restricted to) people over 65 years of age. It is not, as widely believed, a natural part of ageing, and can affect anybody regardless of race or social background.
Each individual will experience dementia differently and symptoms vary between people. In general a person with dementia will often have problems with some of the following:
- day-to-day memory – difficulty recalling events that happened recently.
- concentrating, planning or organising – difficulties making decisions, solving problems or carrying out a sequence of tasks (e.g. cooking a meal).
- language – difficulties following a conversation or finding the right word for something.
- visuospatial skills – problems judging distances (e.g. on stairs) and seeing objects in three dimensions.
- orientation – losing track of the day or date, or becoming confused about where they are.
The Dementia Friends campaign aims to give people an understanding of what it’s like to live with dementia, dispel common myths and stigma associated with the disease and show how we can make a real difference to people living with the condition.
To become a Dementia Friend, visit http://www.dementiafriends.org.uk/ and watch the short video, or find an information session run by a Dementia Friends champion (a trained volunteer) in your area.The full film of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ will also be available to view on the site.