What I Wish People Knew About Dementia: From Someone Who Knows

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What I Wish People Knew About Dementia seeks to help readers both understand the science and empathise with the real-life implications of the disease. Occasionally heart-breaking, sometimes hilarious, Mitchell’s little snippets from her friends are always grounded in reality. Many will be instantly familiar to those who’ve experienced a dementia diagnosis personally.

Wendy hopes What I Wish People Knew About Dementia will help show the condition is about much more than memory loss.Here's how, with your support, Age UK is supporting older people through the cost of living crisis.

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Now in her mid-sixties, she is holding on to her independence, still living alone in her village and taking regular country walks with her camera (in northern Europe, a third to half of those living with dementia live alone).Wendy Mitchell, whois living with early onset dementia, was given a “sad look” by the doctor who diagnosed her with the disease at the age of 58, leading her to believe her life as she knew it was over. What people with dementia need is help and support to continue with the things we love – in my case, walking in the countryside. My main message to the family of someone with dementia is: don’t give up on us! Don’t ‘disable’ us before time When people think of dementia, they immediately associate it with memory. Few people realise, for example, just how it changes our relationships with our senses, our emotions, our communication. Few people understand the importance of a good environment – both inside and out – after a dementia diagnosis, and the small changes that can make a big difference. Unless you tell them, or talk about it, people will never know the difference dementia makes to your relationships – and how to make them work better. And if you don’t know any of this at all, how can you be responsible for your attitude?”

Five years before passing away, my grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Although our family has genetics of dementia, we often denied that it will be passed down through the family. If you only look at that small part of someone - memory loss - you're missing out on supporting them in so many ways and making their life so much better and in return, your life so much better." But her diagnosis far from represented the end of her life. Instead, it was the start of a very different one. I used to worry and try to fix things for everybody before, but I don’t tend to worry about anything now. I get anxious about it, but I think, “I can’t do anything about it now,” so I tend not to try and fix things for others. I had a bad accident before my dementia – I got hit by a car – and from then I learned things were out of my control. I do worry about my family, but I don’t worry about life or myself. I don’t worry about my future, whereas I used to before.” Peter says, ‘The individual sections are mines of useful information, drawn up in a storytelling way with humorous anecdotes helping to illustrate the points.This achieves just what it sets out to: give a picture of dementia from the inside. As it’s not a narrative, it’s probably best read in small doses, but there are some great stories along the way, like the epilogue’s account of her skydive to raise money for Young Dementia UK. But Mitchell tells us that there is a bright side, and she teaches us how to get to that side. She explains the problems caused by the inability of a dementia patient to find her co-ordinates or recognise landmarks when out walking; but that does not stop her from her long walks in the countryside. She is determined to reduce the stigma around the disease and encourage others to take part in clinical trials and research.