Two new research programmes are helping find new ways to support people with dementia who experience problems with sleep.
Across the world, around 55 million people have dementia. Up to 90 per cent of them experience problems sleeping.
Both too much and too little sleep are common, and can have significant impacts on health, leading to falls, or worsening existing symptoms and increasing death rates. Commonly used sleeping tablets can also be particularly harmful to people with dementia .
Two research programmes led by the University of Exeter are now seeking to...
Barchester’s Cumberland Grange care home, in Exeter got into the Christmas spirit by joining a virtual afternoon of festivities along with the staff and residents at over seventy Barchester care homes across the south of England, Jersey and the Isle of Wight.
Cumberland Grange’s staff and residents worked as one big team to try and win Barchester’s Big Christmas Quiz of the year. The afternoon provided much entertainment and laughter amongst the home and when they weren’t quizzing, residents enjoyed a feast of festive foods and mulled wine prepared by the home’s chef, Simon....
Families affected by dementia in Exeter, Torbay and Teignbridge are being invited to take part in an award-winning programme, to help train the healthcare professionals of tomorrow and improve dementia care.
Supported by Alzheimer’s Society, the project Time for Dementia pairs families affected by dementia with undergraduate students, to better educate the students about life with dementia and the challenges that come with it. From September, the University of Exeter’s incoming Medical Imaging and Nursing students will be taking part in the programme, and are now seeking families...
The hills, valleys, and viewpoints around Exeter get a national television spotlight this month on the BBC’s Songs of Praise, in a programme coming from the city on Sunday 16th May.
Hosted by presenter Aled Jones, one of several projects chosen for filming was Exeter COSY Routes, launched last year by the Exeter Dementia Action Alliance.
The COSY project is a mapped 26.2-mile marathon distance route around the city, comprising eight shorter circular routes of between four and seven miles.
It was created by keen runner and walker Jo Earlam, a board member of the...
A staggering 2,000 people with dementia are estimated to have died from coronavirus in South West England since the pandemic hit the UK in full force in March 2020.1
They are among more than 34,000 with the condition to have died in England and Wales from Covid-19, making people with dementia the worst hit by coronavirus.
In addition, new calculations from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that deaths of care home residents, where at least 70% of people have dementia, are 30% higher than previously thought.
Exeter researchers are seeking local volunteers to take part in the world’s most detailed study into the onset and development of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Deep and Frequent Phenotyping (DFP) study aims to tackle the challenge of diagnosing and tracking Alzheimer’s disease in its earliest stages – often decades before symptoms start to show.
DFP will recruit 250 participants from across the UK who are over 60 and in good health, but with a family history of dementia. Volunteers will undergo a range of existing and new tests over a year-long period, including brain scans,...
Exeter Dementia Action Alliance (EDAA) have joined forces for a second time to create their 2021 ‘Shining A Light On Dementia’ desk calendar, illustrated by the Cartoonist Tony Husband.
Gina Awad, EDAA Lead said “our 2019 calendar was such a success we decided to create another due to popular demand. It’s been such a tough year for everyone and in these times it is so important to raise awareness of how the condition impacts the person living with dementia and those caring for them. We hope our calendar can achieve this with a smile and a tear. It’s been so refreshing working...
£1.2 million in government funding will help researchers develop an innovative online programme to improve and personalise care for people with dementia in care homes, which were hard-hit by the COVID-19 crisis.
Many of the 400,000 people living in care homes in the UK have dementia, mental health or neuropsychiatric symptoms, and a number of physical illnesses. They are at particularly high risk of developing severe COVID-19, and providing support is challenging for care staff who are facing a difficult, distressing and isolated work environment.
Family and friends of people living with dementia across the South West have put in 9.4 million extra caring hours since lockdown began, an Alzheimer’s Society investigation reveals.
The shocking figure has been blamed on the double whammy of lockdown making dementia symptoms worse, and the chronically underfunded social care system leaving them nowhere else to turn.
Nationally, the charity estimates family and friends have spent an extra 92 million hours caring for loved ones with dementia since 23 March.
TV presenter and Alzheimer’s Society supporter Ruth Langsford is urging people across the South West to step out in support of the charity.
The UK’s leading dementia charity is calling on 3,112 people across the region – a combined number that attended last year’s Memory Walks in Bristol, Cheltenham, Plymouth and Bournemouth – to take part in a very different version of its most popular fundraiser.
With the Coronavirus pandemic bringing large fundraising events to a halt, the charity is seeking to replicate 2019’s success with hundreds of smaller walks.
