Dementia support group

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 4

Dementia support group

A self-help society for those caring for dementia sufferers will be started in Christchurch.

A group of health and community workers hopes to see an Alzheimers Disease and Related Disorders Society (A.D.A.R.D.S.) started on the same lines as the Australian counterpart Mrs Pat Wood, a social worker at Sunnyside Hospital, said the main aim was support for the relatives

and friends of dementia sufferers.

Dementia, illnesses which caused growing forgetfulness and confusion mostly among the elderly, affected more than 2000 people in North Canterbury. “This group has really been shut away in a closet for years,” Mrs Wood said. There was a basic lack of information about dementia, usually termed “going senile,” which wrongly implied that the condition was a normal part of ageing. “It is even more important for family and friends to know what is happening,to be able to talk about it and not feel guilty,” Mrs Wood said.

The society would encourage mutual support groups, two of which were already working informally at the hospital and in the community. It would also aim to educate the public about dementia and encourage research into the disease.

Pamphlets are being drafted for the organisation, which Mrs Wood hoped would be formed at a public meeting in Christchurch. Other centres were already interested in the idea.