No more Covid restrictions, and yet visitors are few and far between to care homes. Residential homes keep going in and out of self-imposed lockdowns as soon as a couple of cases of Covid are diagnosed. Precautions are going to stay with us for some time to come. There is the risk, however, of visits becoming a rarity rather than a frequent occurrence.
Family members and friends have become used to not making time for visits and residents have become accustomed to their isolation. It is an incredibly sad situation.
For the second time in two and a half years I was not allowed to visit for three months because of 4 cases of Covid in Redbond Lodge where I have been visiting people for six years. On my return, there is a fatalistic despondency towards their life on the part of residents who had previously been feisty and interested in the world outside. Their resigned acceptance of an existence devoid of external stimulation is heart-rending.
In my endeavour not to give up on them, I am relaunching this project, which will involve making it known to university academics involved in dementia studies, schools with sixth form studies, colleges of further education, as well as the public.
I am aware of the uphill road ahead. Amelesia is controversial and goes against the grain of received wisdom: people with dementia are to be pitied, because it is not their fault, poor things. That is the general attitude towards people who are labelled with this word, regardless of the disease that has taken over their brain, whether it is Alzheimer’s or Lewy Body or Huntingdon’s.
I find it all so demoralising. Almost everyday there are reports in the press about new findings of causes of ‘dementia’ and what can be done to ‘avoid it’. The most recent is menopause: ‘Menopause before 40 may be linked to higher dementia risk’ reported The Times on 02-05-2022, apparently drawing on a Chinese study at the University of Shandong in China.
On the same day, a documentary on Menopause broadcast on Channel 4, reported on American studies being carried out at the University of Arizona which suggest increased risks of Alzheimer’s during perimenopause, that is, in early menopause.
These findings were challenged by academics in English universities in The Conversation (an online academic news-roundup new-paper) on 10-05-2022 with their paper ‘Menopause: HRT’s brain-protecting effect may be overstated’.
I hope to report on any response I get to my promotional work with universities.
Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels