Today’s meeting about ‘Dementia Friends’ offered information and support for those caring for people with dementia and gave useful information about the South Yorkshire Dementia Action Alliance’s Dementia Fire & Home Safety Project. People struggling with dementia but still living in their own homes often need help in ensuring their homes are safe. Gill Carr, Barnsley coordinator of this project, reminded us that we can all have free fire and home safety checks to try to reduce the risk of fire and associated consequences.
Those living with dementia are given priority in these checks, and as a result of this project, South Yorkshire Fire Rescue has seen the number of home fires they attended in South Yorkshire fall from 1008 in 2001-2002 to 649 in 2014-2015. For your free home safety check, phone Gill on 0771 400 2323 or email gillcarr.daa@icloud.com or call Fire & Rescue directly on 0114 253 2314.
The other information shared was about the ‘Herbert Protocol’, a police initiative which uses a form to collect historical information that can be used if a person with dementia goes missing. Information such as other places the person has lived in, favourite places, other names they have used (e.g. a maiden name) and an up-to-date photograph can all help the police to find the person quickly. All police officers carry mobile devices which can be used to transfer this information to every officer in the area and in neighbouring police forces. It can be extremely distressing to the person and to friends and family if a person living with dementia goes missing, and having this information available can help speed up the searching process.
Dementia Friends aims to increase awareness about dementia and change the way that our society thinks, talks and acts about dementia. Dementia is the umbrella term for a variety of brain diseases which manifest themselves in different ways, including forgetfulness, speech problems and difficulties with visual perception. For more information, visit the Dementia Friends website.
