Around 225,000 people develop dementia every year - that's equivalent to one person every three minutes. For those of you unsure, let me explain what dementia is. Here is a condensed version of the Wikipedia definition:
'Dementia is a broad category of brain diseases that cause long term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember that is great enough to affect a person's daily functioning. Other common symptoms include emotional problems, problems with language, and a decrease in motivation.
The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, which makes up to 50-70% of cases. Other common types include vascular dementia (25%) and Lewy body dementia (15%). Less common causes include Parkinson's disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. More than one type of dementia may exist in the same person.'
I've had experience of dementia both personally and in also in my line of work. Sufferers go through a wide range of emotions - confusion, anger, fear. And it's not just the person affected who suffers, it's the friends and family around them too. The people who care for them, who see the person they once knew slip away to be replaced by a stranger.
So the reason for this post is to try and raise awareness of the problem, and possibly to raise some sponsorship money too. I've left it a little bit late (the walk is in just over a weeks time - please pray for a sunny day!) If you don't want to, that's perfectly okay but if you do thanks a million! You can donate via my Just Giving page, and all money raised goes directly to the charity.
www.justgiving.com/MW16clairecarter
Update - sorry, blogger is playing up, can't get link to open. If you want to donate you'll have to copy and paste link.
I'll take some photos, and let you know how it went.
Xxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment