MINUTES OF AWARENESS SESSION AT NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NUTRITION PENSIONER'S ASSOCIATION
Topic: Understanding Dementia and What is Healthy Cognitive aging?
Facilitator: Dr. Suvarna Alladi, Additional Professor and Neurologist at NIMS, Hyderabad; President, ARDSI
Date: 6th April, 2015
Place: National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad
Time: 10.30 - 1:00 pm
- The programme commenced at 10.30 and was attended by close to 60 senior citizens and ARDSI staff. Literature on Dementia was distributed to the audience.
- The programme commenced with Dr Suvarna Alladi's talk on dementia, the types of dementia, its prevalence in India, risk and protective factors and the concept of the life course perspective on dementia and healthy cognitive ageing.
- She went on to speak about the history of the NIMS Memory Clinic and ARDSI, and the process of assessing and counseling a patient and their care-givers by the staff. She enumerated the different services offered by ARDSI and about the Zeba Bashiruddin Centre for Healthy Aging set up to cater to dementia patients, caregivers and healthy adults.
- She concluded with different methods to preserve one's memory such as regular exercise, balanced diet, and cognitively stimulating exercises and about how delaying the onset of dementia by adapting one's life course was imperative.
- A brief question and answer session followed in which the audience clarified their doubts about the difference between normal forgetting and pathological forgetting, about their interest in the Zeba Bashiruddin Centre for Healthy Aging and other queries regarding dementia and healthy aging.
- The session ended with the audience thanking the speaker for an enriching talk with a few members expressing their interest in being a part of research in the area.
