Recently Damian murphy from Innovations in Dementia CIC and myself travelled down to London to speak at the Royal College of Psychiatrists 9th National Memory Services Forum, about post-diagnosis support and the “A Good Life with Dementia”
WE travelled on the Monday and stayed in a Hotel two doors from the College which was handy.
Damian met me at Sheffield station and we discussed the presentation as we travelled down to London.
Once at the hotel I took time to recover from the journey before we met downstairs for something to eat in the evening where we had time to catch up and talk about the next day.
Tuesday morning I was up early, I like to go for breakfast early before it gets busy when I travel. It was quiet while I tucked into a full English and managed to leave before it got too busy and before I was challenged by excessive noise which would have made the day even more challenging.
I met Damian in the cafe later and we walked the short distance to the college.
We registered and met Claudelle whom I had only met by email. Once upstairs I was able to introduce Vicky Cartwright whom I had met previously to Damian and I met Reinhard Guss and many others during the day.
There was a wide cross section of professional and organisations represented, the majority involved in Memory Services across the UK.
From my notes, there were a few information stands, Jean Tottie at the Tide Carer’s stand and a Join Dementia Research stand, the memory of others have faded with time.
The main themes of the day were post-diagnosis support, supported decision making and reducing chemical restraint.
Damian and I spoke after lunch about post diagnosis support and the “A Good Life with Dementia” course and it appeared to go well.
I got a laugh when I apologised in advance if my FTD turned my language blue and I pointed out that my wife thought I was swearing a lot more lately, oh the joys of Dementia.
At the end of the day we said our goodbyes and took a taxi back to the station to get our trains home.
My overwhelming impression was that here was a group of people overwhelmingly embracing the need for post-diagnosis support and the reduction/removal of the BPSD Pathway.
When The Fog Lifts 