Our speakers today were Kelly Bleasdale and Chris Jullings from Essex Dementia Care.
Chris, a trustee, said that dementia is a disease of our time. The term dementia covers a number of neurological disorders such as vascular dementia and frontal temporal dementia. However 60% is attributed to Alzheimer’s. Symptoms include memory loss, difficulties in processing information and communication. Sufferers also exhibit mood and behavioural changes which may be caused by chemical changes in the brain or simply by frustration.
There are currently 850,000 diagnosed cases of dementia in the UK, representing 1.3% of the population. There are likely to be more than one million sufferers by the year 2025.
Essex Dementia Care was set up in 2095 and became a charity in 2009. They offer four main services. They can assess dementia sufferers after diagnosis and consider therapies to complement mainstream treatment. They offer chargeable one-to-one services according to need. They run four activity centres in Chelmsford, Braintree, Sandon and Bradwell. They also offer support for families.
Chris explained that they are increasingly reliant on donations as grant funding is ceasing.
Kelly talked about some of the people they have helped including a lady who wanted to go horse riding again. After looking at several riding schools they went to Riding for the Disabled and she now enjoys riding every week.
They helped a keen fisherman who was no longer able to fish but missed the tranquillity of sitting on the riverbank. They paired him up with one of their volunteers who takes him out, one to fish and the other to sit and enjoy the peace and quiet.
Overall the charity provides 2,000 hours of client care a month.
Essex Dementia Care is our President’s charity this year so Kelly will be returning in June to accept a cheque.