Supported self management for people living with dementia

Here’s what I said to a brilliant workshop at National Voices yesterday at the launch of a new project to promote/define supported self management.

So, what about about supported self management for people living with dementia?

Let’s first understand dementia.

Dementia is a collection of symptoms and behaviours resulting from disease of the brain.

The disease is irreversible and decline is continuous though inconsistent, and different for everyone.

Decline can be counteracted in some people through the use of drugs which improve the functioning of the healthy parts of the brain, for a while.

Dementia differs from many medical conditions and diseases in that it can neither be cured, nor its relentless progress stopped. So management is just that…managing life with dementia.

And what is living with dementia?

It’s about parts of your brain ceasing to function properly so you can’t process…