Page 15 Advertisements Column 1

Press, 12 April 1989, Page 15

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City on a Timebomb Christchurch is staring down the barrel Bold Bid of a frightening crisis. gfe f A The number of elderly people the Rev. Edward Johnston. care services co-ordinator, Mrs ' suffering from dementia in the The problem arises, ironically, Janet Anderson. --v wW*’' ® general population is growing at from the progress of medical “The strain causes shocking B Chi Ch an alarming rate, and science. People’s bodies are stress on families," said Mr wRRbIi » «. , 1 * Christchurch is runnning out of surviving longer, but of how the Johnston \ w ' * "» a K ... r -v. r .u r .. facilities to look after them? mind ages little is known. Normal nursing homes ; A new purpose-built facility for of the Health Department guidelines The most common form of facilities and staffs Ire equalfr 'A / x V elderly confused is being planned for Chnstchurch based on projected population elderly dementia is Alzheimer’s liable of coping with Bk W '• ' - ” - ' The Anghcan Socml Services figures indicate that by 1991, disease which causes a gradual dementia Sufferers are often still 1 ' - ' bed complex at Churchil Courts in Stapletons Road Christchurch will be short of 56 breakdown of nerve cells in the qXstmnTand their frusS t' ’ . The residential care uni son the Richmond site will beds for the elderly confused. brain’s cortex - the sufferer can It not knowing who or where they ‘ ™‘ m ° peratlOn eluding the 38-bed genatnc One person in 20 over the age of no longer unlock memory which are can lead to violent reactions. Z - , •' The first stare of the new building nroieet t went v 60 has a confusion problem. As enables him or her to interpret “It has to be dealt with by staff c beds niu a surroundings and make the who understand, in surroundings . existing hospital, will start in April. The kitchen five over the age ofBo suffers from ThlreilnocureforAlzheimer’s. £mselves l in nd X -J xf J will also service meals on wheels cn mo;nUno;ivAfj.mA„t;A r . , . . Liituiiseives in Mieiy anu k* The government has started the ball rolling bv some intensity ot dementia. Families must learn to endure security said Mrs Anderson B .-l .* e . > .i_ *. i . , *. x. • i . j t,cllu & luel SUII ’ i.. .Ba F Jr. contnbuting $ 1,5 m towards the total expected cost brightening enough these their loved one s progressive and Thev are not iust vour *~ z z »Mf F /*' r, u <• . . o ■■ o figures may be, but then add the irretrievable loss ofreality. As the “delightfully dotty" people. SofficXS, WaXriconXt J™ fact that by 1996 there will be an disease is not related to physical They’ve gone past that llMjlOlflß-: ■ /' y P. J , •in, i i cT cron non i extra 4783 people over the age of health - the advanced stage of the Y g P 1 church will provide the balance. Some 5620.000 has 80 in Christchurch and the crisis disease leaves only the brain stem “They need activities that can / 3 "TUcitvll in lut-h desnerate need of the comnlex comes into focus. In that age group, functioning to keep the heart and make use of the skills they do / ia a 'u i P ' ui • <i -P ’ + %O nci 1 1 • XL A-x- iiidKe use ui uie sKiiis uiey UU gglll / I don t see how people can possibly ignore the issue. the figures represent a 72.7% lungs working-the condition can remember, but the activities have Everv single citizen of Christchurch is -it risk of increase since 1981. last for manv years before the to be non-threatening " she said . , y single citizen ot Christchuich is at nsk ot That means there will be nearly death of the patient occurs. Nor can rest homes’cope with • contracting Alzheimer s disease. 1000 more elderly confused in The behaviour of Alzheimer’s patients who are determined and Rev - Ted Johnston and the council's architect Mr Spencer Meikle study the project plan. thisdlslX And wldon’t hive Christchurch m eight years than sufferers is typically beyond the persistent wanderers. • tn cone with it ’ P now. What will happen when the management skills and facilities rruc -r. u- . hxl c . a post-war “baby-boomers" reach of the norma! family. “Christchurch desperately rtflw 4-£ /I thXXS the susceptible age-group at the "You cannot expect families to needs good purpose-designed F I II Til 11 r* I* TITTd . the special needs of elderly people who -ire in S°,hod e d?r n 1 t „ U 2:S rlSinthe facilities to provide a safe and A •*" WllVt f phyXalM field shudder to consider. strain on them, and there are secure environment where i "■ j j I \ ability to relate to their environment Even now we are struggling to fewer family members around effective supervision by staff can TOtOG KI OVT GTOKI MBt "To often sufferers are nlacedTn facilities which accomodate them in dignity, said than there used to be to do the be easily but unobtrusively X JXk V ?» cater f or t h e j r medical needs but offer little Anglican Social Services Director, caring," said the council’s aged maintained," said Mr Johnston. ■ Spportunhy fcrth™£mX 2 personal effects, mementoes and furniture which -_ The sl.sm fundraising campaign opportunity to join the Endowment provide them with a vital lifeline to their own F ■ J| F* fortheChurchillCourtßedevelopment Programme whereby rooms, major realities, said Mr Watkins. ■ Old 1 1 ■ takes a further step this Sunday with fittings and items of furniture and Sir Peter Elworthy For the mentally frai , hospitals and nursing R R | Wr I I MKR » B M ■ ■ J a‘kick-off function for a community other facilities can be individually i*' . > homes can often be viewed as foreign environments W/B-**** VZA. giftsteam paid for. Wa. and this tends to further disorient them which, if The professionally-advised These range from naming rights to | ® anything, could aggravate their condition A TB ‘ • campaign has operated at three the residential wing to financing the ' . Anglican Social Services has decided, quite /W BFW *1 A •«. 1- distinct levels. Two of these, major soft furnishings and linen for a single rightly to confront the problem head on. I m sure /A IVn P I rfl PKG As it progresses earlier gifts and key gifts, have been in fiifi room. B* W Christchurch will get behrnd us. ■A M B memories are affected. The opera ti O n since the campaign was This enables individuals or groups I 'WIL . - , . sufferer may conf use grand- launched in November last year. to commemorate someone living or üBIL First in South Island AiL-jA- xl 4 n i children with children, children Both have targets in excess of dead, because the name will be Alzheimers disease is the most imbalance, brain tumours or fluid with parents. A husband may be $5OO 000 and th ° Ans!ican Socia p appropriately displayed. Or, Nancy-Lady Stewart Mr Watkins said this will be the first complex in a enlUeriv/XVm P r^ s ure on the brain seen as a “strange man about the Seryi ’ off * Mr B commercial organisations can take -• the South Island designed specifically for the b cause ° f Alzhe ‘ mers ’ h »“ se . . . Watkins said each is on track, about advantage ofthis as a public relations mentally confused. refemngto a senes of neurological however, is unknown. Wandering can become a ha if way towards its goal gesture. L * B Organised into a number of smaller units, the y At , « nl y memories problem as the sufferer seeks the „ We haye been deli hted at the Community gifts team members complex will provide residents each with their own are lost pots may be left to boil only home he or she can remember on se of Christchurch to date but and volunteers are to be given a F .W bedroom as well as a small communal unit providing hfilinrXrvenr nP.XnI over on the stove, taps left running -the> home he or she lived in as a natura i ly weare verykeen togetmore detailed look at the site and the project j» a quasi-family environment. There are areas in the 12 billion nerve cells or neurons bankbooks mislaid, names of child. Appropriate social : donors • this Sunday at a function at Churchill 1188 J* plans for people to be alone, areas for mixing with bini C oXo?^hpXpXX n il TT f ° rgOtten ’ a PP° intments responses are forgotten. Eating The third leyel js the Communit Courts. Guest speaker will be the others. fhrXhln tbJEX MpXS S en r -1 L• n Ik becomes messy, dress slovenly. Gifts progl . amme with a target of Rev. Bob Lowe. Courtyard gardens encircled by outside gardens throughout the body. Messages The family may be inflicted with The ability to speak and move $375> 000 Under the scheme, being Mr Ford said any member of the Mrs Ros Burdon and secure fences would give the elderly a domestic entering the bi am are passed fi om accusations of theft of articles correctly are lost. ]ed , Mr lan Ford some 200 pu blic who is interested in the project 's* environment, even down to details like old-fashioned neuror i to neuron until they'reach mislaid, and will worry about the Incontinence sets in and it is volunteers will be enlisted to make a and in | earning more about it would |||y flower plantings that may be picked by residents, the part of the brain that enables risks associated with the misuse usually this that prompts a family contribution bim or herse lf and then be welcome to attend. The colour scheme ofthe residential section of the us to react to our environment of electrical appliances: to decide fulltime professional care t o secure five similar pledges from The overall fundraising campaign complex will be coded. Colour recognition is one of Diseases like Alzheimers break The disease is insidious in that, is needed. other people. is chaired by Sir Peter Elworthy. the last faculties lost by Alzeheimer’s sufferers, and down the pathways for those in these early stages, the sufferer The patient is left much like a Contributions of three hundred Major gifts chairman is Nancy-Lady colour coding of the building will assist advanced messages. may be aware of the disease and dependant, regressed infant In do]lars or more , spread over three Stewart, and Mrs Rosalind Burdon Mx sufferers to find their way around the complex. Some dementias are treatable, possibility that he or she has its most severe phase he or she is a re being sought. heads the key gifts programme. M with the patient recovering some contracted it. Fear and the panic bed-ridden, prone to infection or Donors are a]so being „i ven the Another innovation is that doors leading to mental functions, but these are that one is going insane can bronchial pneumonia often s ® Mr lan Ford insecure areas will be disguised. conditions caused by hormonal become irresistable forces. proving fatal. The buildings themselves will conform to the minimum requirements for licensed private medical ; hospitals and will be constructed of permanent, low f B 1 H | H J X.X, 1 * -4-wv maintenance materials with built-in safety features All vinrr rlno OilOCKlllg rteallty faccidentscause,lbylhe I I \f 111 I | I " IJ I I Residents will be admitted irrespective of religious, V/-L J- social or cultural background. Things started to go wrong. - sons would have a good education. The complex will also provide a measure of wider Alzheimer’s disease is ability to reciprocate the Then there are the precise needs of the “I must be getting old," Jenny - ■ She made a fine job of bringing up community care for dementia sufferers, too. Plans a vicious double-edged love being expressed by guilts — the guilt of dementia sufferer. would laugh when she called a i, the boys. It was when she was of an incorporate a number of special short-term relief sword. Not only does it the relatives. feeling embarrassed by grandson by his father’s name. . age when she could relax, pursue beds where sufferers can have a short stay, offering rob the victim of his or The life ofthe relatives a sufferer’s social The living death of She'd forgotten the family was her own interests, have a trip, be a some relief and relaxation to family and other her reality, but it also has been described in behaviour, guilt from geriatric dementia is - going to visit and had gone for a 'A Jr grandmother, that things started caregivers. Limited day-care will also be provided at inflicts severe suffering professional literature as failing to accept the suffered as much by walk along the beach. , \ AJK going wrong. the stage one complex. on the victim’s loved an “ongoing funeral". Yet patient’s condition and, relatives as it is by the Jenny kept the problem of her it X ones. there is no ritualised most importantly, the patient. Given that one failing memory to herself, starting B 1 One day Jenny sprained her wrist catharsis that the guilt arising from the person in five over the to write herself little reminder K while working in the garden. The tj—■_ 4 j-u The relatives of the funeral provides. There decision to transfer the age of 80 will be struck notes. jR aHOR doctor already knew of the family’s W Alzheimer’s sufferer is not the community patient into a nursing by dementia, the But her sons started to notice Jennv-things concerns. Gently, he persuaded her cannot expect the patient sympathy engendered by home where the care, condition’s statistical things - mould growing on a piece started to go wrong. to undergo a series of tests. These Vei*V £)L)CCi<TI PeOT)le to recover, even where a conventional funeral, though professional and potential to cause of fruitcake left in the tea-towel gradually eliminated the possible «/ r r the maximum quality of The family grieves alone expert, is not, in widespread suffering in drawer; saucepans with blackened bottoms. and treatable conditions. The challenge of caring for the elderly suffering care is provided. - often for a good many Christchurch anyway, the community is “I hate Granny," sobbed a grand-daughter when The evidence was clear: Jenny was suffering from dementia is not limited to buildings - a group Gone is the patient’s years. sufficiently tuned to the horrifyingly immense. accused of stealing a brooch. from the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. o f very spec i a ] people is required to staff these Hertwodaughters-in-lawdecided Jenny wasn’t institutions. ’ feeding herself properly and started a programme Six months later she was moved into a home. She The people required to staff a purpose-built facility T| • 1 j of inviting her to dinner or taking a cooked meal to was looked after very well. When loved ones left for the elderly confused must be totally dedicated. ■ 1 n 1 CTO her - after visiting Jenny would politely thank them. In Apart from having the obv i O us nursing skills, Ba. Her sons discovered she was withdrawing money the afternoons she would often sit in the lounge, they must understand the effects of dementia and « x J from the Post Office and leaving it in strange nervously pleating the material of her skirt, be able to respond to patient needs and requestsVirtually nowhere to care tor the elderly demented places around the house. It was time to persuade chatting about the work she was doing-washing, even through these will often be expressed in Jenny to consult a doctor. ironing and mending the boys’clothes, housework confused or‘offensive’ways. This stark and disturbing fact is disorientation. wandering into danger. Jenny turned bitter. She told them there was — and growing anxious that there was so much to Ways to involve the patients in meaningful and highlighted by the Churchill Courts ’Single rooms for each patient ’Garden areas to provide a nothing wrong with her, they just wanted to get be done. And so little time to do it in. enjoyable activity must be found even though their campaign. to create a space filled with the pleasant place for sitting, rid of her. Their father would sort them out when short attention span will often lead to expressions of The main features of a facility patient’s personal ‘treasures’ , walking, picking flowers etc. be came home, she would tell them. And then she She has lived there for two years now. Jenny no boredom and frustration. designed specifically for elderly mementoes and familiar ’A layout enabling easy would begin to cry. longer knows the family who visit her regularly. Relatives too will reouire a certain amount of patient. offering from dementia fnrmtur. WasitSofraJe memory that their father, her Thfetalfean „„ iongeZmake Jenny nndSstan’d management ’ •Simplicity of layout and buildings and grounds integrated patients* husband, had fallen in World War II and that she what they are saying. And they cannot understand Staff must learn to support the relatives’griefat domesticity of style and scale to aid to present a feeling of freedom ’Provide an unvarying daily " ad yahantly raised her two sons on a widows what Jenny says. the disintegration of a loved one’s personality, and familiarisation and reduce while preventing patients from routine. pension? Soon, Jenny will be transferred to hospital guilt for transferring them to an institution. She’d supplemented the pension by doing because she is annoying the other residents. p or their part, these very special people must —— : housework for others. Jenny was determined her Jenny is 70 years old. receive adequate and ongoing training programmes A ,• and support staff. Anyone can Anglicans’ fine track be a f fe ct ed recorf -----n Alzheimer s disease is cause themselves and v 111 111 I IVmI I I ■ I not a condition that can their relatives. Anglican Social Services has targetted care of | be avoided by intel- O f greater concern is the elderly in Canterbury since its inception by 4 e |p Christchurch relieve the Suffering Of Alzheimer'S Victims and their relatives. I nmritinn clean ’ living- that • tRe facillties ? f p ? r iament i*lA 9 r 5 ’th yninntervcectnrnf Become involved in this pioneering and courageous move on the part of Anglican Social Services to ensure Christchurch has s :SanV‘S n S e™fi T™ 3^^^"“yeaXoX ’° ™° da,e ,he ra P* 9^ng 9 number of elderly confused in our city. | contact or maintaining among the above number residential accommodation and expert loving . Please VOL! I* h6li3 i physical fitness. Anyone are either woefully care to those who sought its help. ■ tick Jr 1 H" ® can be struck down with inadequate or non- Sustained growth of services has been planned I i Vao I m I the disease. existent. What has been and implemented, to the extent that the service ■ iT, " I recognise the immensity Of the Confused Name. . called ‘the rising tide of provides 10% of all the available private beds for ! elderly problem in Christchurch and wish to become Address—— ■ Most of the 35,500 dementia’will prevail if. the elderly in the Canterbury area - some 280 I involved. Please have a team member contact or Visit ' Tal»r>h«r>« Mnrr>h«r- ’ Alzheimer’s sufferers in steps are not taken now. beds in Churchill Courts, Churchill Hospital, Mary | me - I eiepnone IMUmoer. | New Zealand in the year While promising re- Armitage Flats, Holdsworth House, Fitzgerald ■ j Vacl .. Please Clip this coupon and return to: Project Officer, Anglican ■ 2001" are today healthy search is progressing in House and Bishopspark. ■ I recognise the problem, please Send me Social Services, Freepost 647, Christchurch. ( No postage stamp required.) . people in the prime of a number of countries, Churchill Courts, built as an orphanage in 1911, I more information about this worthy project. ) I I Please send nwGWßequestPlan information. 9 ANGLICAN SOCIAL SERVICES ' sufferingthe disease will cure. to meet specific needs. ■ Phone Christchurch 795-950 during office hours or 795-168 after hours. « V I £ i ,5 J. j