So much of the current debate around dementia
focuses on carers and the financial time bomb facing the NHS, that it
can seem as if we lose sight of those actually suffering it. So it was
good to see the start of Channel 4’s new three-part series Dementiaville
put the focus back on patients, exploring both how they are affected
and new treatment methods that ameliorate the sense of anxiety that can
accompany the condition.
Last night’s opener followed the work of specialist carers at Poppy
Lodge near Leamington Spa, one of a handful of residential care homes in
the UK that use a treatment known as the “butterfly household model”.
This is a method that acknowledges rather than seeks to correct the fact
that many dementia sufferers, faced with crumbling short-term memory,
increasingly retreat into unique worlds of their own by returning to
significant events in the past as if they were present reality.
There was no attempt to make 91-year-old Les Hadley – who spent part of
every day searching the home for his “dear old dad” – understand that
his father died 40 years ago. Instead carers engaged with Les’s
memories, never-READ MORE-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11652158/Dementiaville-episode-1-review.html
