Following on from last weeks A Good Life with Dementia , I was back in a warm York this morning for week 6 of the course.

A Taxi took me to the station and it was time to test out my new over ear headphones with noise cancellation as the in ear ones I tried last week weren’t very effective in reducing the effects of noise during that trip. By the time I arrived in York, I found that they had made a big difference and I was a bit clearer headed than before.

This week was about our rights and we were joined by Helen from Dementia Action Alliance. Damian Murphy gave a short presentation about rights and a few examples of peoples experiences around the country.

In our discussion there were many examples where our rights had not been maintained for example on a York Minds and Voices trip, they could only get on a train via a ramp at one end of the train, but had to go to the other end of the train to access their seats.

Another example was that with some Chronic Diseases, at the point of diagnosis you have access to all the support and services you need. In a lot of peoples experiences, when getting a Diagnosis of Dementia, you are given some leaflets and left to find your own way without any support.

mentalhealth.org.uk points out that :
People with dementia have the same civil and legal rights as everyone else.
The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and European Convention on Human Rights
apply to everyone. Dementia is a disability under UK disability legislation (the Equality
Act) and human rights laws, and under the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

I arrived back in Sheffield, a little more relaxed as the new headphone had eased the noise and the resulting confusion that can occur, I didn’t expect them to cancel out all the noise but I was pleased with the result.

Maybe one day, with the hard work that a small group of people around the world are undertaking, all people with a Dementia will have equal rights to access support, services and funding.

Damian Murphy has written a blog about today in more detail.

Next week is the final week of the “A Good Life with Dementia” course.