Remote and rural dementia care
Our new edited book – Remote and Rural Dementia Care: policy, research and practice hit release on 8th May in physical and ebook form (details at the end of this blog). Working on the book was an amazing journey. I learned some countries (e.g. Austria and Norway) take sensible approaches to rural resourcing – like working in teams that include whoever is an available asset (local primary care staff, carers, social care staff and so on) and ensuring regular meet-ups and education for high-quality, personalised care. Flexibility, adequate resourcing, harnessing local people and skilling them up are just what years of working in rural health have suggested to me is just plain obviously sensible. But rare.
I was also mega-impressed with the approaches taken in some Canadian First Nation communities, to accommodate cultural belief systems with biomedical Western approaches. In all, though, I have to say the most amazing thing that happened to me in writing this book, was making the acquaintance of Kate Swaffer – co-founder of Dementia Alliance International (DAI) www.dementiaallianceinternational.org/. Kate is a tireless advocate for human rights of people living with dementia around the world, since herself experiencing acquired disabilities caused by younger onset dementia. While interviewing Kate for the book, she told me some confronting things – like that, on her diagnosis - she was basically told to ‘go home and die’. Radically (I am being sarcastic here), Kate also highlighted having people living with dementia as chapter authors: ‘nothing about us, without us’, is her motto. Most recently, Kate has been highlighting that our current worldwide experiences of isolation and social distancing are actually the day-to-day experience of people living with dementia. In a recent blog post, Kate wrote
“A dear friend called me this week and asked me how I was coping. She is like an adopted sister to me, and is not one of the ‘many’ who walked away from me after diagnosis. When I said life was no different now than before COVID-19, and in some ways it is better, she was a little startled, and said something like, ‘yes, I suppose that’s right, it has definitely been your experience long before this pandemic’. https://kateswaffer.com/2020/04/03/covid-19-and-dementia/
In a similar way, I guess – working on the Remote and Rural Dementia book - has highlighted to me the exacerbated isolation that can be experienced by rural people with dementia, their carers and service providers around the world, but also the potential benefits of living in rural places. Experiencing those benefits, though, is dependent on having access to unspoilt nature, people who care and cultures of support, and being an equal member of your service team. In some places, there is a long way to go with dementia care.
From 8th May and as ‘instant download’ ebook
www.booktopia.com.au/remote-and-rural-dementia-care-anthea-innes/book/9781447344957.html