Vancouver Museum of Anthropology UBC

Vancouver Museum of Anthropology UBC
Another mask...

Monday 20 September 2010

Yesterday in the park...

Received an invitation from Jenny (Occ. Therapist) who works p/t at the Reitman Centre to come out, visit her home in the Greek Town area, east of downtown and for Amy to meet and have fun with her daughter. The two girls are the same age and they really enjoyed themselves, as we all did in a nearby park. The weather was sunny and warm. Mary & I sat and talked with Jenny about her work and her approaches with people with dementia at the centre and a really interesting current collaboration with a chaplain, in running a group there. I am being invited to join this small group on thursday and I look forward to it very much and permissions have been asked and given for me to attend. I also met Julia and family in the park who also works with Jenny at the Reitman. Julia is a theatre director and researcher into art/health based research and has done some fascinating work on using health-based research, the results of which then get transformed by her and a working group of actors into a play. The play is then shown at differing stages of development to the various focus/interest groups that contributed to the original health research. The play is then performed by way of contributing to getting health researches disseminated in creative ways to people who may have no knowledge at all about the subject. This is of particular relevance to me as I'm hoping to set something similar up when back at work and Julia has agreed to collaborate with me on its development. Exciting stuff!!

Am now off to prepare for my first workshop today at the Reitman Centre at Mt Sinai Hosp ( 2-5pm). It is my first real foray into meeting and working professionally with folk here, presenting and transposing the use of movement, dance, music, song, reminiscence etc with a mixed group of folk including care-givers. I really hope it goes well and am somehat nervous about how it will be received. I know this is what I've come to do (but in confessional mode right now) however there is a big sense of the 'not-yet-known' about it.

It is Dementia Awareness week all week here in Toronto and the paper 'The Globe and Mail' are running major articles on the subject every day this week. It is a brilliant time to be here in fact. I am buying the newspaper and getting myself familiar with its contents. My sense is that in the UK we are ahead of Canada in this respect; as yet they have no 'National Dementia Strategy' and yet from the first article on Saturday the journalist was identifying points 1to 8 I think it was? that would contribute to the development of a canadian dementia strategy. Anyway more of this when I have had time to digest the material. Canada is having similar problems with the extraordinary rise in numbers of people projected to get this condition and from what I can gather, (together with the press interest) have not decided at federal or state level how best to respond.

That's it for now. I'm also needing to do some dancing just for me....will try and find a contact improv class/workshop or jam here if there is one?

4 comments:

  1. ........."following treatment will result in a cure of some kind". I'm finding this all very interesting and fascinating, but off the top of my head ..... what does the WHO definition make HIV or many cancers, both of which have a start, sometimes an indefinable path but I think certainly don't have a cure after treatment. Those that have HIV or cancer may consider they have a disease of some sort or dis - ease.

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  2. Alzheimer's Disease (AD), a term coined by Alois Alzheimer in 1907, is a relentlessly progressive disease characterized by cognitive decline, behavioural disturbances, and changes in personality.

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  3. http://www.networkedblogs.com/topic/dementia/

    top 40 blogs on dementia/alzheimer's...
    you can browse through them, follow them through your blog and put a link of your url so people can start following you as well...

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  4. Thanks for that Marina, very helpful indeed. I shall try but I'm not good navigating these internet pathways.
    Cardo try reading Harding & Palfrey on the social construction of dementia. Also I think you should follow Ally and do yer GP training or summat on top of what you do already...perhaps a new challenge? I don't know really just my sense.

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