• Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 79 subscribers
  • Views 3523 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

dementia versus autism

longman

Dementia is very much a frontline issue. It costs £26 billion a year - autism has a cost but probably not on the same scale, and the response for autism is to constrain resources. Dementia is in focus because community action, such as Dementia Friends, can reduce some of the impact.

I'm not trying to detract from the importance of dementia, but although the causes are different, the impacts have similarities - social communication difficulties, including loss of connectivity with family and friends; anxiety and depression, clumsier and slower movement.

It seems strange that similar lifestyle impacts can get so much interest for one condition, while another condition with similar lifestyle implications has to struggle for funds and research.

In some ways the experiences of people living with autism could inform understanding of living with and better coping with the problems of dementia. Dementia is mostly about later life. Autism is a lifelong condition, and means people having to cope and adapt across a lifetime. That experience and insight must be valuable.

However no attempt has been made to generate Autism Friends. It is only a localised phenomena to have buddying systems in school, colleges, universities and the workplace. Why cannot the Dementia Friends concept be extended to benefit people with autism?

Also autism has not experienced the level of public focus now being given to dementia. So there ought to be many ways autism can benefit from new strategies for dementia, where there are comparable lifestyle issues.

But to benefit from any spin-off and interchange of ideas NAS and other organisations need to flag up the similarities and the cross-benefits.

How do others feel about this?

Parents

  • Dementia is very different, in my experience. I had one elderly relative, who drifted into a true second childhood. She became like a five year old, delighted by little gifts, incapable of looking after herself, in terms of food, drink, cleanliness. She became entirely dependent on family, care workers and ultimately needed permanent residential care.

    My mother, on the other hand, whom I believe now was also on the spectrum, became aggressive, obstructive and difficult to manage. She was fiercely independent, to a very worrying level, long after she was totally unable to care for herself. She ultimately had to go into a care home, to maintain eating and drinking, but suffered from being in an overly social situation.

    Dementia friends and other such interventions, tide people over the early stages of dementia, when they are still capable of many aspects of looking after themselves, but find it increasingly difficult. Can you imagine what it would be like to gradually begin to struggle with things you have done all your life, and not be able to grasp why you struggle. Things you did automatically drift out of your ability. You have to increasingly give up doing the things you used to enjoy and accept help from the children you looked after for so long. It is a painful, undignified loss of capacity, on the inevitable downward slope to loss of life.

    Personally, I would rather die from some short sharp illness, than go through the slow decay, that is dementia.

Reply

  • Dementia is very different, in my experience. I had one elderly relative, who drifted into a true second childhood. She became like a five year old, delighted by little gifts, incapable of looking after herself, in terms of food, drink, cleanliness. She became entirely dependent on family, care workers and ultimately needed permanent residential care.

    My mother, on the other hand, whom I believe now was also on the spectrum, became aggressive, obstructive and difficult to manage. She was fiercely independent, to a very worrying level, long after she was totally unable to care for herself. She ultimately had to go into a care home, to maintain eating and drinking, but suffered from being in an overly social situation.

    Dementia friends and other such interventions, tide people over the early stages of dementia, when they are still capable of many aspects of looking after themselves, but find it increasingly difficult. Can you imagine what it would be like to gradually begin to struggle with things you have done all your life, and not be able to grasp why you struggle. Things you did automatically drift out of your ability. You have to increasingly give up doing the things you used to enjoy and accept help from the children you looked after for so long. It is a painful, undignified loss of capacity, on the inevitable downward slope to loss of life.

    Personally, I would rather die from some short sharp illness, than go through the slow decay, that is dementia.

Children
No Data