Creating happy memories for elderly
When I was in my 20s, people held this deep seated fear of cancer. Many people wouldn’t even use the word — referring to it in whispered tones as the big C. Time moves on, medical science develops and new treatments and cures are found. Even if there aren’t cures, there are good treatments developed to manage symptoms and over time we’ve become a little less fearful. However, we’ve found a new bogeyman — dementia.
We fear losing our faculties, and with good reason. This is a growing issue and people who have dementia are often younger than what was once the norm. The changes in the brain from dementia are like weeds choking a river — what was once a fast flowing stream (the nerve pathways) of information become tangled and blocked, slowing down processing. It’s a bewildering disease where newer memories get destroyed but the older memories are often left intact. We all have memory lapses where we forget where we put the car keys. The difference with dementia is that we’re not sure what to do with them when we find them.
Caring for people with dementia is about providing encouragement to keep doing the things the person can still do for themselves, support with the things that have become too difficult, and most of all providing activities and social contact that revive the “feel good factor”. What could be a happier food memory than eating fish and chips out of the paper like Lonsdale residents enjoy? Research tells us that the good feelings that come from a happy activity persist even after the activity is forgotten. For now, there is no cure for dementia, but good care certainly makes the symptoms more bearable. By TONY HUNT In November this year the town will celebrate its 150th anniversary when the name for Te Awahou-Manawatu village became Foxton.
A good idea for a celebration if ever there was one! One celebration this year is the 140th anniversary of All Saints, the church which opened in October 1876.
Perhaps the Presbyterians and Foxton Little Theatre can organise an event in 2017 to celebrate this 150 years. This is almost certainly the oldest building in use in the Manawatu area. Other milestones that can be celebrated include the first local body elected in 1867, the Foxton Highway Board, and in 1868 a successful petition to get the Wellington to Wanganui Coach to spend a night in Foxton rather than Te Wharangi (now Foxton Beach).
In 1878 the first edition of the Manawatu Herald was printed and lasted until the 1990s. Another petition that did the rounds led to the passing of the Manawatu Racecourse Act in 1869 to set aside land for the present racecourse.
In 1869 a courthouse was built — perhaps the present one will be earthquake proofed in time to celebrate.
In 1969 the Historical Society commemorated the building of the first flaxmill in the town. James Pownball built this in the area south of the Water Tower. Perhaps Foxton, the “Flax Capital of the World” will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the flax industry commemorated at the Flax Stripper Museum. There is so much that Foxton has to celebrate!