Awareness Session followed by ACE-III Screening Camp at Senior's Citizen Group, Shah Ali Bhanda
Topic: Understanding Dementia
Facilitator: Amulya Rajan, Psychological Counselor, ARDSI Hyd Deccan
Divya Raj, Clinical Psychologist, Memory Clinic, NIMS Hospital
Date: 12th November, 2013
Place: Gunvardhak Samstha Library Meeting Hall, Shah Ali Bhanda, Lal Darwaza
Time: 3pm- 6pm
- The meeting commenced at 3pm and was attended by close to 35 people including NIMS Memory Clinic and ARDSI staff. Literature on Dementia in English and Urdu was distributed to the audience.
- The session commenced with Ms. Divya Raj introducing the audience to the topic of Dementia and what the term means. She then went on to explain to the audience the different complaints that dementia patients and their caregivers usually come to neurologists with.
- Further she spoke of the procedure of assessing and diagnosing a patient with dementia- first starting with cognitive assessments, then going on to do more tests and scans and then finally with the neurologist making a diagnosis.
- Ms. Divya then gave the audience a brief overview of the different kinds of dementia that exist and the symptoms that define each kind.
- Ms. Amulya took over the presentation at this point by talking about the percentage of elderly and patients of dementia currently present in Andhra Pradesh.
- She then went on to talk about the various ways in which one can prevent dementia stressing on a lifestyle that constituted physical fitness, health diet and various activities that stimulate and protect metal and emotional health.
- Further Ms. Amulya went on to speak about the Supportive care necessary for dementia patients. She stressed on how they had to be encouraged to do several mental, social and physical activities and had to be treated with care and regard through the progress of the disease.
- Ms. Amulya concluded the talk with a brief overview of ARDSI, Hyd Deccan chapter and the various activities that they were involved in. She then opened up the session for questions.
- The question and answer session led to the discussion of queries such as how to make sure one doesn't forget day to day appointments, for which the audience were encouraged to keep reminders either in a diary form or in their phones, and other questions such as how not to misplace common things such as keys to which the audience were asked to be more organized and have designated places where keys and other important items would be placed without fail.
- When a gentleman from the audience stated that he even forgot his grandchildren's names once in a while, he was encouraged to get his cognitive assessment done for more clarity on his issue.
- After this cognitive screenings of all the people were done where the experts administered the ACE-III in different Indian vernacular languages as well as in Indian English to all the people present.
