'Dementia: Remember Me' Theme for World Alzheimer's Month 2016
Facilitator: Ms Amulya Rajan, Psychologist, Ms. Bala Tripura Sundari, Joint Secretary, Mr Mohsin Mohammed, Admin, ARDSI- Hyderabad Deccan
Date: 19th September, 2016
Place: Sloka School, Gachibowli, Hyderabad
Time: 1pm-3.30pm
- As part of the World Alzheimer's Month activities, 2016, an awareness session and a painting competition was conducted for the students of 9th and 10th grade at Sloka School, Hyderabad on Monday, the 19th of September 2016.
- The session commenced at 1pm and was attended by around 35 students of Sloka School, administrators and staff of the school and ARDSI-Hyd Deccan staff. Literature on Dementia in English, Hindi and Telugu and brochures about the full-time daycare centre setup at ARDSI- Hyd Deccan was distributed to the audience.
- Ms. Amulya began the session with a brief introduction to dementia by talking about the importance of memories using different analogies. She then went on to explain the symptoms of the dementia like the loss of memory, language, logical decision making, to apathy, to disturbances in the conceptual understanding of relationships. Different examples of actual interactions with patients describing these symptoms were discussed.
- Ms. Amulya then went on to define dementia as failing memory, its prevalence in the population and the different social, medical, psychological and economic implications of the disease including caregiver burden and stress. She also spoke of the common complaints that patients and their families come with on their first visit to the doctor. She then listed out the possible causes of dementia both reversible and irreversible like Alzheimer's disease, Stroke and thyroid and vitamin deficiencies. Ms. Amulya gave the audience a brief outline of other kinds of dementia such as Vascular Dementia, Lewy Body dementia and Fronto-Temporal Dementia.
- She then spoke of the history of the Memory Clinic at NIMS and ARDSI- Hyderabad Deccan, and the process of assessing and counseling a patient and their caregivers by the staff. She enumerated the different services offered by ARDSI including the fulltime daycare centre with photos of activities.
- She spoke of Supportive care as the mainstay of therapy for dementia patients and ennumerated the different aspects of supportive care including how one must understand and respect the person with dementia. She concluded with different methods to preserve one's memory such as regular exercise, balanced diet, and cognitively stimulating exercises, and the need for the students to spread this message.
- The paintings made by the students will be displayed at DAIRA CENTRE FOR ART AND CULTURE from the 26th to the 30th of September 2016 from 11am to 7pm. On the 30th of September at 5pm we will be having a High Tea followed by prize distribution for best painting.
Photos Link
