Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Day-room plan to stimulate memories
An appeal to help people living with dementia has been chosen by the Kentish Gazette to be our charity of the year.
We hope to help it raise £500,000 to provide a range of support services and facilities, including a new day room for patients at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.
The Dementia Appeal was launched last year by the East Kent Hospitals’ Charity and has already funded a day room at the QEQM Hospital in Margate.
Now it plans to refurbish and equip a similar room on Harbledown ward at the K&C to create a social, non-clinical space with the feel of a cosy lounge, a semi-working kitchen area and activities to stimulate patients’ memories.
It has been designed with older patients in mind and has some very special features, including a flat screen television which has been installed in a 1960s-style wooden surround.
There is a washing machine which gives off the smell of fresh linen and computer tablets which play old black and white
films and news clips. There are currently around 22,000 people with dementia in Kent but the number is rising every year, presenting increasing challenges and demands on healthcare professionals. The charity says that 35% of all inpatients in east Kent’s hospitals are affected by brain disease which indicates the scale of the challenge and need.
But research shows that those with dementia make a quicker recovery in hospital if they get focused support.
Charity fundraising manager Rupert Williamson said: “Dementia may not be one of the more appealing causes but it is crucial that we make a difference in our hospitals because it potentially impacts on every section of community.
“Being the Gazette’s charity of the year will provide the impetus, publicity and exposure we need to gain maximum support.”
So far the charity has raised £ 114,000 of its target, and £60,000 has already been spent
‘Being the Gazette’s charity of the year will provide the impetus, publicity and exposure we need to gain maximum support’
on the dementia day room at the QEQM. It is already in use but is due to formally open next month. It hopes to complete the Canterbury one for less.
The money has been raised through a cycle ride, abseil, craft fairs, a dementia awareness
week and memory cafes.
They have funded reminiscence interactive therapy and activities (known as RITA), dementia activity ‘tubs’ in 28 wards across the trust, lunch and memory lane cafes and a pop-up cinema screen.