By Amy Lewis
Operations Director at Just Checking
Today marks World Alzheimer’s Day, and sadly the statistics make for somber reading.
There are currently around 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, and this is projected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040. It’s estimated that 209,600 people living in the UK will develop dementia this year – that’s one every three minutes.
Dementia is the broader term used to describe a number of different conditions affecting the brain, Alzheimer’s being the most common cause of dementia among older adults.
It’s clear that this very difficult condition is touching more and more lives, but as I’ve seen during my time at Just Checking – living a fulfilling life with dementia IS still possible.
Prolonging independence
Alzheimer’s disease progresses in stages, and while an initial diagnosis can be very scary, many people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s are still able to live full and independent lives.
Often it’s the ‘what-ifs’ that care practitioners and family members find most challenging to manage… ‘what if mum isn’t eating and drinking properly’, ‘what if Mr Hughes wanders out at night and doesn’t know where he is’.
We see time and again that by using our monitoring and activity sensors, care practitioners and family members are able to evidence the day-to-day capabilities of people diagnosed with dementia, meaning that they are now reassuringly dealing with the facts.
What’s more, where it’s been discovered that someone is capable of living independently they can live in their own homes for longer – something that many of us take for granted.
A better quality of life
Take Keith’s story. Keith was diagnosed with dementia and faced the prospect of going into a home, something that he vowed he wouldn’t do.
But by using the Just Checking monitoring system his family could check that he was safe, and he was self-managing daily living tasks when they couldn’t be there.
