Guidelines to halt dementia

When I read the guidelines for stopping or halting dementia the other week, I was left feeling as if something wrong, some where along the line

It's taken me nearly two weeks to think this through, because I was unsure whether I had read and understood  it properly, but now I am ready to comment

Before this all started I was very active and walked quite a lot during each day, on top of doing my job.

I found a note the other day in an old diary, where I walked or cycled  around 10 miles each day, sometimes 15 miles to and from work, yet a doctor giving me a medical examination, said that this was not being active enough.

I dare say many doctors don't walk that far each day.

My brain was kept active, because as a college engineer, I was always busy if I remember correctly, either planning, estimating, or doing something else which kept the brain active.  I was on call for breakdowns, and when I got home we were usually found in our allotment garden,  growing vegetables etc.

Like thousands of other people, I don't understand or see how I got this illness.
How can you go from being active, as well as running two budgets, doing estimating etc, to counting on my fingers?

Like many other people, living with this illness, we can't get the answers to these questions

No one really knows what causes dementia, but there are many people who think that they can tell us how to remain free from ever getting dementia? Including many in the media.

But if that is the case, why is it that thousands of people in the UK alone, are diagnosed with this horrible illness every year.

These comments in the news a few weeks ago, upset quite a lot of people living with this cruel illness, because it's fairly obvious that those writing these comments, neither had a lot of experience in dementia, nor are they living with it.

Looking at this the other day, one  person I knew, commented that after reading these notes, it made it sound as if most of us had been lazy or inactive all of our lives, and rather unhealthy?

There was also a comment about why, "the large dementia charities"did not pick up on these silly guidelines

As one person with dementia said one day. Any fool can write guideliness about an illness, but unless that are living with that particular illness, they don't really have the experience to write about it.

It's a bit like health and safety regulations.  If you have not been trained to do a certain job, you can't possibly write out the regulations?

I confess that after reading the guidlines I felt exactly the same.

Dementia has been around many years, yet our grand parents ended up with it, even though they never stopped working, from early morning until last thing at night.

Many of these people never drank alcohol etc, either,  and had busy lifestyles.

So I do wonder why "so called" experts tell us that by being well educated, keeping active  and eating well,  stops you getting this terrible illness.

It's not so very long ago that we were told that our grand parents ate lots of foods which were unhealthy?

Yet when you look around these days, it leaves a lot to be desired seeing all of the  wall to wall fast foods etc consumed every day.

I have even heard of academics etc ending up with the illness, so no matter what sort of lifestyle you have, you are capable of getting this illness.

So let us hope that in future people think carefully before writing things like this.

I also hope that the media stop using "this illness" as a way of selling their newspapers etc.