Today we went to Brain Day, an annual event I had been looking forward to. The Celebration Choir to which I belong was singing at a lunchtime session to show others what and why we do it. I arrived at the session to find myself in the middle of the front row as all the other seats were taken. A bit too conspicuous for my liking but I acquiesced and settled down. Our performance went down well and I enjoyed singing things ike You raise me up! Tried to catch Dieter's eye as I sang it with feeling, as he has been such a colossal help to me , and vice versa I like to think. Another song of the Carpenters, Sing, sing a song I also sang with great gusto.
The theme of this year's day was dementia it seemed, from cognitive brain impairment (CBI) to full-blown Alzheimer's, understanding it, dealing to it, treating it, coping with it.
The first session I went to was Music and dance in dementia. We all know how important such things as exercise are to keep one fit in body, mind and spirit and dance might be the next thing for me to try after listening and trying out some activities with balloons and simple arm and leg movements. What fun! As Miranda would say. The Centre for Brain Research is planning on setting up a dance group which I think might be fun for us to go to but Dieter doesn't want to take part in, being "a shy person". Pity, but if possible I will go for the two of us, cognitive changes in Parkinson's being quite common. I also like trying new things, especially things I haven't tried for many many years. I did a year's ballet as a very young child!
Th next session was on managing pain in the older person, especially those with dementia . There was two pain specialists from Norway , Bettina and Stein Hasebo who gave the presentation on their experience of seeing the effect of and managing chronic pain in the elderly, especially those with dementia. The topic moved to end of life care for the frail elderly with dignity and informed and presumed consent to stop or maintain treatment and move to palliative care. All very sobering and hopefully not a situation for either of us in the near future. The research shows that the things that are so important are one on one socialisation with significant others, regular family visits, including and especially babies and young children, pet therapy with animals like dogs, the larger the better, they say!
After that was the choir, as mentioned above. Saw so many friendly people I knew all over the place and by the time we had some lunch was pretty tired so decided to call it a day and go home. All in all a very stimulating and worthwhile day.
No comments:
Post a Comment