Event at the Forum from 1st October - "Norfolk Celebrates Age"

[chenrezig]

I have had an interesting afternoon today …

After meeting my friend for coffee n a meal in the Bell before she goes on her hols, I had a wander up to the Forum in Norwich …



The knitted pergola is on display again! For how long I don’t know, but tomorrow an exhibition/events starts  “Norfolk Celebrates Age”, there are various stalls there – Age UK, The Memory Joggers (reminiscence training).,, and quite a few others. While I was there there was an announcement for a talk on Dementia Friends.. I had lost my little badge, so I trotted along in case I could get one .. I did, I also got a free tea and slice of cake!

The talk was about 40mins, and we had a game of bingo of sorts to check we remembered what she had said. Another exercise was we all stood in a circle with the lady giving the talk handing out slips as to who we  were, we then had to step forward if we thought we could do an everyday task, and stay still if we couldn’t. Two people never budged. I moved forward twice, one or two ended up in the middle. Then we had to read out our slips – we were all supposed to be the same person! The idea was that we moved if we thought we could do the tasks, and stay still if we didn’t –of course were thinking from the point of view of someone who hasn’t got dementia and if we thought they could do the task. The point of it was that the person with dementia thinks they can do the task even if they can’t.

I did do a bit better on the next as we had to start writing a list of instructions of what we would do to make a cup of coffee, one person only had two, I got up to fourteen and I hadn’t even put the teabag in the cup! To be fair, I had done something similar when I did a teaching basic skills course where I last worked, except it was to do with being able to read …

She also compared dementia like a rickety, rotten bookshelf ... which was filled up with books (memories) from the bottom up (so long-term memory at the bottom and newer ones towards the top). Every now and then someone gives the bookshelf a good shake and a few of the books (memories) fall off the top, then it gets shaken again, and again ...

One reeeeaaaalllllllllllllly creepy bit, a lady next to me had a baby on her lap, or so I thought. When they turned the lights up, I thought it was a doll, but then it looked too lifelike and I tried to look at it without being seen as to whether it was breathing .. in the end I had to ask her.. it was a “dementia doll” used in reminiscence – it felt so real… there was one lady who didn’t want to hold it or get near it as it “freaked her out”! I held it for a while, and found out how "instinctive it was to try and support it like you would a real baby ... I want one!! The doll that is, not a baby !! lol





At the end of it we all got our little dementia friends badge
Here is a link to the event that starts tomorrow … http://norfolkcelebratesage.wordpress.com/

[annie]

cute pics