Nursing and Dementia

When I did the blog about nurses training and Dementia, I wondered if this had been picked up wrongly, or my writing of it had been done badly

I have nothing but admiration for Northumbria University and it's training of Graduate Nurses, and have been totally amazed at how friendly and polite everyone is. So it's been a total pleasure to be involved with them.

However the results were were from questions my wife asked before we started, and the faces of the students,  when I explained some of  the problems people with this illness face on a daily basis.

If I remember correctly

How many people have been touched by dementia in their families?

How many had heard of Lewy Body Dementia?

How many knew about Robin Williams and his death?

Many seemed to know about his  Parkinson's, but did not seem to link the Lewy Body Dementia to his death and problems

I do feel that after talking about this,  it later became obvious that many people did not recognise the problems he had struggled with, because some seemed to be shocked at the symptoms which appeared in this illness.

I guess many were shocked to hear about Robins death but never looked at why or how he died.

Some possibly heard of Michael J Fox who has Parkinson's and is still active in the Parkinson's field, and this possibly threw them

But I guess that many people including medical staff, don't look at the cause of a person's death, but we're are all different.
I only picked it up due to my links with Lewy Body Dementia, when Robins wife spoke out about it.

But I am now more hopeful that we can raise the profile of Lewy Body Dementia, and get more people supporting us in the future.