Extended Dementia series to follow National Dementia Awareness Week
September 10, 2003The Rural Health Education Foundation has announced four new programs in its Dementia series which began with the broadcast of Dementia: What’s It All About on 25 February.
The first of the new programs, Dementia: The Importance of Early Diagnosis and the Role of GPs, will air on Tuesday 23 September, immediately following National Dementia Awareness Week (September 15-21).
The four new 60-minute programs in the five-part series, which is sponsored by the Department of Health and Ageing, are:
- Dementia: The Importance of Early Diagnosis and the Role of GPs (Tuesday 23 September)
- The Dementia Continuum: How to Manage It (Tuesday 7 October)
- Dementia: What Difference Does Person Centred Care Make? (Tuesday 4 November)
- Dementia and the Aged Care Worker (Tuesday 25 November)
This year National Dementia Awareness Week aims to reinforce the message that “a memory should last forever” and that dementia is not a normal part of ageing.
Alzheimer’s Australia encourages Australians who have noticed any out of character changes in their or a loved one’s memory, thinking or behaviour, to talk to their GP or to Alzheimer’s Australia.
Pertinent facts about dementia include:
- There are at least half a million Australians who are having first hand experience living with dementia.
- The total number of people living with dementia is expected to increase by 65% in the next two decades, mainly because of the ageing of our population.
- There is still no prevention or cure.
The first new program in the Rural Health Education Foundation series, Dementia: The Importance of Early Diagnosis and the Role of GPs, will be broadcast on Tuesday 23 September at 8.00 pm EST, repeated at 8.00 pm that night in Western Australia, and repeated again on Friday September 26 at 12.30 pm EST.