The Lilliane Brady Village (LBV) hosted a public dementia education session last week aimed at helping dementia carers.
Dementia Training Australia’s (DTA) Nancy Marino, who was in town to conduct dementia training for staff at the LBV, led the 90 minute session on Thursday night at the Services Club.
Ms Marino explained there were five main types of dementia—Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular dementia, Frontotemporal dementia, Dementia with Lewy bodies and Mixed dementia, and all affect different parts of the brain.
“Although there are 100 plus different types of dementia,” Ms Marino said.
“Dementia is not a normal aging process, it’s a progressive neurological disease.
“Dementia affects people in different ways.
“No two people have the same dementia journey,” she said.
Ms Marino explained how the different types of dementia can affect people, spoke about the symptoms associated with the different types of dementia, listed the risk factors associated with the disease and gave tips for supporting people with dementia including ways for people with dementia to still be involved with their regular activities.
She also outlined what support is available to carers through DTA, Dementia Australia and Dementia Support Australia.
Recent statistics show that one in 10 people over 65 has a diagnosis of dementia.
Ms Marino said of concern was that more than 28,000 people were diagnosed last year with younger onset dementia and that figure is expected to rise to over 42,000 people by 2058.
A carer who attended the session said she found it “very informative” and requested that more local help be made available.
