Dementia care pledge

I made a visit a couple of weeks ago – you might have seen it reported in the Advertiser last week – to the Jubilee Club in the Lifestyles Centre in Stonehouse.

Here I met dementia patients, supported by fantastic volunteer carers, all having a wonderful time. There’s a variety of activities and fun, from games to musical entertainment.

It was a joy to see the Jubilee Jammers and listen to their variety of folk, war-time and popular songs creating this friendly, warm atmosphere.

These elderly folk may have forgotten the word for a spoon, but they remember those songs and they love to recall and share them.

As the Stonehouse Jubilee Club (SJC) vice-chair, Patricia Smith, points out, “Dementia is a cruel condition, slowly taking away the essence and personality of a loved one. It’s especially hard on a carer who, themselves, may be suffering from health problems.”

The Scottish Government is working hard to deliver important commitments made in its third Dementia Strategy published a year ago.

You can see the full report here: http://www.gov.scot/ Publications/2017/06/7735/5. There, we make the promise: “Transforming services to ensure people with dementia get the support they need, at all ages and stages of the illness, is at the centre of Scotland’s third dementia strategy.” As we get older and live longer, we develop all kinds of health complications like arthritis, rheumatism, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and many other chronic conditions. Our mental health may also suffer in a range of ways, including dementia but also severe depression, anxiety and loneliness that can exacerbate that sense of isolation.

That is why the post diagnosis support that every single person is guaranteed by the Scottish Government for a year is so important.

“We will offer everyone newly diagnosed the guaranteed minimum of one year of appropriate postdiagnostic support.

“Those individuals diagnosed early, and assigned a named Link Worker, will continue to receive support using the 5 Pillars approach for the duration of their time living with dementia, or until such times as their needs change, and they require greater care coordination.”

We know that we need to do more. There are issues that have been thoroughly reviewed such as accessible transport, community support care, appropriate housing options.

All of these we are committed to supporting, not as a generalised theory but in real, practical ways. We continue to meet with and listen carefully to the charities who do so much to support elderly people. Alzheimer Scotland,

Alliance Scotland, the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, the Life Changes Trust, and I am meeting more and more such groups in the coming months. Last year, 90,000 Scots were coping with dementia.

By 2020, there could be 40,000 more. No two people will be affected in quite the same way and we need to be aware of that as we work out how best to support them.

The Scottish Government’s Dementia Strategy sets out a range of commitments on housing, transport, dementia-friendly communities initiatives where the government wants to work with partners like Alzheimer Scotland to explore the possibility of further supporting and nurturing dementia befriending.

I know this last point in particular will be good news for Patricia Smith and all her volunteers. Their attempt to provide voluntary befriending in people’s homes proved

We are developing the best dementia care possible for everyone in Scotland