Great Lakes Council employees and other service providers were recently asked “how would you like to be treated if you had dementia?” at an Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia Awareness Session.

Almost 40 Council staff and 20 staff from service providers (like Community Transport), attended the session, delivered by Judy Bartholomew, Educator for Alzheimer’s Australia.

A challenging part of the training involved watching a video featuring Australians with dementia describing their experiences in every day interactions with people.

Participants were then asked to really consider how they would like be treated if they had one of the many different types of disorders collectively known as dementia.

And now Council is asking you that question too.  You can view the Alzheimer’s Australia video and place your comments on Council’s facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/greatlakescouncil

“We believe that raising awareness of dementia-related illness is an important part of our commitment to become more age-friendly,” said Council’s Community Development Coordinator, Lyndie Hepple.

“While we accept that dementia-related illness does not only affect older people, it is nevertheless a fact that there is a higher incidence of the disease amongst older people, and the Great Lakes region has the second-highest number of incidences of dementia in NSW.”

In 2014 Alzheimer’s Australia made a presentation to the Great Lakes Councillors. As a result two of Council’s senior staff (General Manager Glenn Handford and Director Steve Embry) and Councillor Leigh Vaughan, took up the Alzheimer’s Australia “21 day challenge” to raise awareness of dementia in the Great Lakes.

The “21 day challenge” involved each of them committing to doing something new and different every day for 21 days – since this is one of the ways of keeping the brain healthy.

“Council made a commitment in 2012 to become a Centre of Excellence of Ageing, and became a member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities at the end of 2104,” said Mrs Hepple.

“These awareness sessions are a part of Council’s ongoing commitment to that goal.”

For more information on Dementia-related Disease, head to the Alzheimer’s Australia website www.fightdementia.org.au or ring the National Dementia Helpline on 1800 100 500.