Carey Mulligan nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “An Education” and the star of “Suffragette”, “The Great Gatsby” and “Far From the Madding Crowd” has highlighted the plight of dementia suffers after her grandma lived with the disease for 16 years. During the time she had the disease she became more socially isolated and marginalised.
She feels that because dementia is often automatically linked with old age there hasn’t been the same level of investment, interest and effort into researching the disease and finding a cure when compared with cancer or diabetes that affects wider age groups. It seems we just accept that in old age people will get dementia but this is not a reason for not trying to find a cure.
The actress promotes the work of the Alzheimers Society with its “Dementia Friends” programme which provides talks aiming to raise awareness in the community of memory loss issues. The aim is to remove the stigma and understand that a person’s behaviour could be the result of the disease.
Mark Booker (Independent Living, Owner) commented “we work with a lot of people with dementia. Many people have milder forms of memory loss but can still lead an active life, for example going shopping or to the garden centre. As a society we need to become more patient, tolerant, and understanding of older people who have a right to access services.”
