Press Release

ROTARY TO EXTEND DEMENTIA CAMPAIGN

February 27th 2007

A Dementia Campaign, offering support to families living with dementia, was started by the Rotary Club of Tavistock last year. It is now proposed to present the project to district 1290 which covers The Isles of Scilly, Cornwall & West Devon shortly. However Tavistock Rotary Club hopes to extend the initiative to Rotary Clubs throughout Great Britain and Ireland in due course. The need for this programme is highlighted by research published by the London School of Economics and Institute of Psychiatry today which shows that currently 700,000 - or one person in every 88 in the UK - has dementia, incurring a yearly cost of £17bn.  The total number of people with dementia in the UK will increase to 940,110 by 2021, they predict. By 2051 the figure will be 1,735,087 - an increase of 154% from now -, which will mean dementia will affect the lives of around one in three people either as a sufferer, or as a carer or relative. One in 20 people over 65 and one in five people over 80 has a form of dementia. Around two thirds of those affected have Alzheimer's disease.
The first part of the local Rotary campaign will be the setting up of a dedicated Rotary Dementia website which will provide information on Dementia in a user friendly package.  It will provide information on practical issues such as Powers of Attorney, Council Tax exemption as well as regularly updated information on local support such as dementia friendly dentists. We will work closely with dementia charities  including the Alzheimer's Society.  There are more than 55 different types of dementia affecting people in the UK. Drugs such as Aricept can only really be used to help delay the effects of Alzheimer's, it can't help many of the other dementias.
Peter  Offer, President of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland said “Dementia is on all our doorsteps and is a condition that devastates the lives not just of the sufferer, but also his or her family and friends. I would urge Rotary Clubs to get involved in their communities to give support to those families whose lives are afflicted by dementia.”

The Rotary programme will also aim to provide practical help for carers provided by volunteer Rotarians.  This would involve everything from initiating the set up of dedicated Memory Cafes as in Tavistock, which provides a meeting place to give local dementia sufferers and carers a chance to get together for a few hours of relaxation,,  to helping with practical issues such as basic DIY, form filling, explaining medical jargon etc, these are often very small straws that are guaranteed to break a carers' very overburdened back. 
For more information please contact Judith Diment on 01628 672965 or 07860 162313 or email Judith@thediments.co.uk