Well done to Dr Peter Gordon who was great in giving out my ‘Welcome Packs’.
Almost Specialist Registrar standard…
But more seriously it was good to see so many good #Twitter friends in my audience, as I played personal messages by Kate Swaffer and Norman McNamara, and films by Beth Britton and Peter Gordon. It was a huge delight to catch up with Gill Phillips who gave a superb gift from the group. I especially enjoyed talking to Darren Gormley, whom I’d never met before. It was brill to meet Lee to, for the first time. I really felt amongst research friends too, with Neil Chadborn and Jo Moriarty in attendance. I completely was at one with feelings expressed by Lucy Jane Marsters about aspects we must get right in future, and James Murray-White had a sense of humour I won’t be forgetting in a hurry (top bloke, I hasten to add!) I learnt a lot from Zoe Harris, and felt I understood her innovation for care, and I felt I had executed my duties in describing the support given by carers.
Whenever I had a despondent moment during my talk, I looked at Shaun Naidoo who at least had the grace to talk at my jokes. It was a honour that Margaret Kilby made it too from Stafford to represent, like Beth, the lived experience of caring for someone extremely close with a dementia.
Above all, the afternoon was dedicated to Charmaine Hardy, Sam and Ben. I organised with some of my guests that we would arrange for Charmaine to come up to London to see us, as we missed her so much today.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, this is Norman’s statement from this morning on Facebook.
“Good morning all,
Yesterday was a hard day for many reasons, but i stood my ground!!And On more than one occasion !!!!. I was questioned about the GPS Systems, the ethics of it and how many people we will reach and are reaching now. Questions were raised about how some people thought the Purple Angel campaign was just a one man band and will fizzle out after my demise (Their words not mine!!) and the locality of the reach we have!!
This hurt as i felt it was undermining all the great work you have done around the world, something they are having trouble grasping!! Being as protective of you all as i am, i let them know, in no uncertain terms how STRONG we are, how BIG we are and how our Arms all reach around the globe in complete unison and that i will not, or will ever, have people talking (Gossiping) about something they quite clearly no nothing about!!!
Days like this will come, i know this, and i can deal with it without favour or fortune ( i fight a bigger battle of my own as you well know) but please know i will always defend the work we do , you do, and everybody does in this wonderful organisation. For all who like a bit of a read this is what i wrote in my feed back to all attendees yesterday when i arrived home last night, much love to all and always remember
“Together We Are Strong”
XXXX
FEEDBACK LETTER
Good evening all, just a little feedback from todays meeting. As a person “Living with Dementia” can i just say a huge thank you to each and every one of you for your attendance today under such difficult circumstances regarding the weather.
Now, onto my feedback, after the “Lively” discussion Ian Sheriff and myself had regarding the locality of what we do under the banner of the Purple Angel Campaign i would just like to clear a couple of things up. As much as Ian pressed what we do is a local thing just in Torbay, nothing could be further from the truth.
The Purple Angel Campaign is a Global movement with over 100 Dementia Ambassadoors worldwide. We have huge swathes of the UK covered and reading the material we provide for free, the links at the bottom of this e mail me show just this. The Urban MYTH that all this will collapse when i become worse is just that, and URBAN MYTH. We have Succession protocols in place and not only that the 100 ambassadors i talk about the majority also have their own teams to take this forward when i am long gone. I will say passionately, that whilst others have been discussing this, talking about oty for months and the ethics of it, doing research will last months and months, we have just got on with it and got the job done, and in the process of carry on doing so.
As for the GPS `s being a local thing, this is also UNTRUE!! The call centre in Torbay is now a NATIONAL CALL Centre for the whole of the uk. The GPS`s are being posted to those who request them from the 1st of Feb 2014 and are being activated ALL over the UK as we speak. They will begin to save lives The call centre employees are all ex Dr`s, Nurses, Firemen and paramedics who are all versed in Triage and emergency situations !! All protocols have been passed by the NHS and devised by Devon and Cornwall police. How other forces respond will have to be worked out at their own local level but these are now “LIVE and “Active ” across the UK
Without having what we call a sideways dig at anybody, the Alzheimers society are not the Dementia police and are not the only ones who can make a difference to people with dementia and their carers!! And certainly not everything has to be okayed by them. I was so happy to have the support there today of my fellow Purple Angel dementia ambassador Hilary Cragg who is also a solicitor and i was only to happy to hear that she also is mystified by the “Ethics ” argument regarding GPS SYstems. Nobody is forcing these on anybody, and if anybody gets to the late stage where they aren’t responsible to say yes or no then there is usually a Power of attorney involved or a need for care, it really is as simple as that and its the media and the general public who are making hard work of it as usual!!
That said we dont have to PROVE to anybody what we are doing, and whatever the outcome will just carry on doing what we do best. The invitation to ALL of you is here to ask any questions you want too and our offer of help still stands to all who need it. I hope the weekend is a lot kinder to you than it was to us all today.
Best wishes, Norrms and family”
I would like to make a brief statement on this status.
I have met Norman and Elaine:
The idea that Norman is a ‘one man band’ is science fiction.
My personal Facebook is populated full of ‘Purple Angels’ who genuinely adore Norman.
Norman is in fact what management gurus would call a ‘charismatic leader’. This means that he has a vision; he has followers; he’s communicating his vision; and followers believe in his vision.
I think it’s very difficult to find a more relevant stakeholder opinion that that of the person living with dementia.
I think, in fact, and many agree with me, as an academic who has devoted a lifetime to dementia, that they should be at the heart of all service provision decisions about strategy.
I also think they should shape the direction and tactics of our global research strategy.
If anyone would like to discuss with me rationally the ethics and law of wandering mitigation, I am happy to do so. I am a member of the World Neuroethics Society, and have been awarded my Master of Law from the University of Law here in London.
Using words such as ‘demise’ can only be hurtful. As somebody who had a cardiac arrest in 2007, I should like to remind people that anything can happen to anyone at any time.
My aspiration to make life better for those living with dementia has been obstructed by much promotion and spin from those people who have pursuing their own agenda often with a cruel aggression. I salute Norman and his Purple Angels for standing his ground.
All I can say to Norman is that at first they ignore you, then they try to discredit you, and then they attack you.
Norman’s reaction yesterday confirms for me only one thing.
That Norman and Elaine, and the Purple Angels, have in fact won the “battle”. And thanks to them we have made huge advances in promoting living well with dementia.
Plans to harvest private data from patients’ NHS files are causing a ‘crisis of public confidence’, the Royal College of GPs said this week. The professional body said it was ‘very worried’ that the public had not been properly informed about the scheme, which is due to begin this spring. Conversely, NHS managers and public health experts say the data will be used for important research and to show up poor care – and that all the data will be made anonymous. But other experts, in information security, say patients will be identifiable from their data – which will be passed on to private companies including insurance firms, and the professional regulatory code for ethics puts valid informed consent as of prime importance. A growing number of GPs oppose the care.data scheme, and say their patients will refuse to give them information for fear it will be harvested.
In the actual Communiqué from the G8 dementia Conference, the drive of sharing of “Big Data” was formally acknowledged. In the actual webinar, there was in fact screening of a session by corporate investors on the need to minimise risk from their investments to have the regulatory framework in place to avoid concerns over international data sharing.
Indeed, BT have taken active interest in dementia.
This report cites that, “the goal of finding a treatment to cure or halt dementia by 2025 is “within our grasp”, Prime Minister David Cameron has said, as he announced a doubling in UK funding for research into the disease.”
“The London conference is expected to agree to a package of measures on international information-sharing and collaboration in research. ”
These concerns include data privacy and security, and curiously do not feature above.
Last year, leaders from MedRed and BT were invited by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to unveil their new collaboration, the MedRed BT Health Cloud (MBHC), at “Data to Knowledge to Action: Building New Partnerships,” an event held at the Ronald Reagan Building 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW in Washington, DC, on November 12, 2013.
MBHC is a multiyear, transatlantic effort to make available one of the largest open health data repositories in the world. It has been recognized by the Obama Administration as a high-impact collaboration that supports the Big Data Research and Development Initiative.
Designed to meet the converging needs of the life sciences and healthcare industries, the MedRed BT Health Cloud seeks to enhance integration of U.S. public data sets, such as adverse event reporting data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and recently released Medicare data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with data from the UK’s NHS and ‘other healthcare systems’.
Data currently available through the system includes several years of deidentified population health data from England, Scotland and Wales, as well as hundreds of other U.K. and data sources. It features data such as physician encounters, acute care interventions, pharmacy history, and health outcomes data.
It is argued that integration of this data with U.S. data and the addition of advanced analytics hold great potential to help speed the development of products and practices that will advance healthcare and improve the health and well-being of people around the world.
The drive for collaboration in data sharing to find a cure for dementia, most agree, is a worthy policy concern, but so is the current lack of openness in clinical data sharing which has brought about an overwhelming feeling of avoidable mistrust in the public.
The ultimate goal is the use of genomic DNA information for the development of personalised medicine.
A study testing all the DNA in the genome of cancer cells, the first of its kind reported on 7 Februrdy 2014, has identified individuals that may benefit from new treatments currently being tested in clinical trials.
Metastatic cancer – cancer that has spread from the region of the body where it first started, to other areas – is generally regarded as being incurable. In 2013, 39,620 women died from metastatic breast cancer in the US.
Progress in developing effective new chemotherapy or hormonal therapies for metastatic cancer has been slow, though there have been developments in therapies targeting specific genetic mutations in breast cancer.
We’ve all been shown Facebook adverts containing highly focused suggestions for purchases known on our known habits.
“Patients are identified to enroll in clinical trials based on more sources—for example, social media—than doctors’ visits. Furthermore, the criteria for including patients in a trial could take significantly more factors (for instance, genetic information) into account to target specific populations, thereby enabling trials that are smaller, shorter, less expensive, and more powerful.”
Of course, widespread internet access is an essential part of this technological revolution.
As regards BT, data sharing and dementia, surely it’s “good to talk” with the public who are, after all, central stakeholders?
Brought flowers home for my mum to cheer her up… Huge smile on my face when I saw the beautiful bouquet delivered for me #feelingloved — Beth Britton (@bethyb1886) February 14, 2014
@charbhardy@mkilll@legalaware Morning Charmaine, Margaret & Shibley! Just one more day Shibs, exciting! See you all tomorrow, safe travels — Beth Britton (@bethyb1886) February 14, 2014
What question do I ask #dementia carers 2 find out if they feel supported (oh, & what does ‘supported’ really mean?) Pls RT @edanaming — Louise Searle (@LouiseSearle2) February 13, 2014
Frustrating conversation today with manager at grans home. Too ready to accept mediocrity. I’m not #dementia — Lucy Jane marsters (@lucyjmarsters) February 14, 2014
Justin-jargonbuster-Waring: Implementation research: not ‘doing’ #nhs change; finding best way to facilitate evidence-based practice #clahrc — Neil Chadborn (@nchadborn) February 14, 2014
John Betjeman feared bureaucracy .. an “as if” caring world. A world based on checks and ticks.
By 2006, Bush had convinced himself that the invasion of Iraq was not a mistake.
“I’ve never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions,” he told a delegation of conservative columnists.
If you wish to believe that there is a war against dementia, you will go round seeking information to support that belief.
See for example the information extract below from an ‘infographic‘.
This is known as a ‘confirmation bias‘.
A related phenomenon ‘cognitive dissonance‘ is the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, and/or values at the same time. This stress and discomfort may also arise within an individual who holds a belief and performs a contradictory action or reaction.
The magnitude of dissonance produced by two conflicting cognitions or actions (as well as the subsequent psychological distress) is likely to depend on the importance of cognitions. The more elements that are personally valued, the greater the magnitude of the dissonant relationship will be.
Cognitive dissonance theory is founded on the assumption that individuals seek consistency between their expectations and their reality.
Because of this, people engage in a process called dissonance reduction to bring their cognitions and actions in line with one another. This creation of uniformity allows for a lessening of psychological tension and distress.
And it’s been a popular tool in political messaging.
Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency.
A nice example of cognitive dissonance was recently provided by Alzheimer’s Australia:
According to Festinger, dissonance reduction can be achieved in three ways:
Attitude: “I am fighting a war against dementia and will avoid any unpleasant battles.”
Behaviour: I will donate money to further the fight against unfriendly communities.
1. Change behaviour/cognition (Ex: “I will simply not donate any money.”)
2. Justify behaviour/cognition by changing the conflicting cognition (Ex: “I’m allowed to donate money to take part in the fight every once in a while.“)
3. Justify behaviour/cognition by adding new cognitions (Ex: “I’ll plan a trip to the cinema to take my mind off the fight against dementia.“)
There are various paradigms used to explore cognitive dissonance further.
Dissonance is aroused whenever individuals voluntarily engage in an unpleasant activity to achieve some desired goal. Dissonance can be reduced by exaggerating the desirability of the goal. Here an unpleasant activity might be reducing your bank balance to support the fight against dementia.
Aronson and Mills (1956) had individuals undergo a severe or mild “initiation” in order to become a member of a group. In the severe-initiation condition, the individuals engaged in an embarrassing activity. The group they joined turned out to be very dull and boring. The individuals in the severe-initiation condition evaluated the group as more interesting than the individuals in the mild-initiation condition.
All of the above paradigms continue to be used in fruitful research.
And cognitive dissonance can also act on the level where you make a donation, in your fight against dementia to establish a dementia-friendly community, but you subsequently have a ‘negative cognition’.
Ward argues that “the more that post-decision dissonance is heightened by the importance of the issue at hand—and the longer the delay in deciding among equally appealing alternatives or the greater the difficulty of reversing the decision—the more individuals will have a need for reassurance.”
Quoting the work of Sweeney and colleagues (Sweeney et al., 2000), they say a fruitful avenue for exploration might be for fundraisers in charities to investigate the following affective and cognitive concerns among their major donors as follows.
Emotional: A person’s psychological discomfort subsequent to the donation decision
After I made this donation:
I was in despair
I resented it
I felt disappointed with myself I felt scared
I felt hollow
I felt angry
I felt uneasy
I felt I’d let myself down
I felt annoyed
I felt frustrated
I was in pain
I felt depressed
I felt furious with myself
I felt sick
I was in agony
Wisdom of donation: A person’s recognition after the donation has been made that the charity may not have needed the funds or that the person may not have selected the appropriate charity
I wonder:
if the charity really needed this money
if I should have donated anything at all
if I have made the right choice of donation amount if I have done the right thing in making this donation.
Concern over decision: A person’s recognition after the donation has been made that they may have been influenced against their own beliefs by the charity
After I bought this product I wondered:
if I’d been fooled
if they had spun me a line
if there was something wrong with the charity.
Clearly there’s a lot to examine there if they want to!
Some of it may lead to more effective manipulation of emotions by charities to fund-raise.
References
Sweeney, J. C., Hausknect, D., & Soutar, G. N. (2000). Cognitive dissonance after purchase: A multidimensional scale. Psychology & Marketing, 17(5), 369–385.
Ostrich Care have decided to offer “tracking devices”, supported by 24/7 365 geo tracking and contact to a live emergency call response centre.
The idea is that, for people with dementia who know they’re at risk of suddenly wandering, the trackers can be used to work out where that person has gone.
Norman McNamara describes the project in the short film above.
Norman describes the usual concerns about their use in his video, including whether it’s a proportionate response to wandering using the notion of human rights.
There’s no doubt that wandering can be a distressing and dangerous situation for certain individuals with dementia (and their closest.)
Practical issues which will be of concern to users of this device will inevitably include the idea of being tracked at all, whether the user will remember to take the tracker with him or her outside, or whether the battery life is sufficiently long such that the device doesn’t conk out.
Anyway, the idea is that this approach is voluntary, and will bring benefit to those who want or feel they need them.
Some information about the “Ostrich GPS tracker” is here.
This is potentially an extremely exciting time for anyone interested in, or actively working, on dementia. Norman McNamara has appointed ‘Purple Angel Ambassadors’ all over the world to help spread dementia awareness worldwide. There are currently volunteers in Australia, England, Germany, Nepal, Scotland, the USA and Wales. Norman is a pioneer in promoting dementia awareness.
The idea of dementia-friendly communities brilliantly encapsulates what a progressive care system could deliver, both for those who need support and for the ‘deliverers’.
The concept is simple: to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and help them to become active members of the community. This means bringing together every part of a community – health services, social care, transport, local businesses, charities and voluntary groups, the police, the fire brigade and local people. There are criticisms of course such as how big could the community be? Also, is it particular feasible to have communities which are ‘dementia friendly’, rather than say focussing on communities which are ‘disability friendly’ or ‘gay friendly’? It could be argued that ‘dementia friendliness’ unnecessarily promotes a silo-way of thinking, which is not genuinely inclusive in approach.
The aim of southeastern Wisconsin city is to become a dementia-friendly community was initiated by Jan Zimmerman, a nurse and administrator of a local assisted living centre. She wanted Watertown, a city of about 24,000 people 40 miles east of Madison, to be a community where residents are educated about dementia, business owners are trained to assist customers with memory loss, and people with dementia remain independent for as long as possible. On 4th February 2014, Alzheimer’s Australia launched their next phase of its Fight Dementia Campaign – Creating a Dementia-Friendly Australia, urging the Federal Government to implement and build on the 2012 Aged Care Reforms and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The Belgian city of Bruges has long been recognised as a pioneer in the issue. Traders are putting up signs indicating that ‘they’re ready to help’. There’s even a database of vulnerable citizens, because of risk of people with dementia going missing.
“Brand ambassador” is a marketing term for a person employed by an organisation or company to promote its products or services within the activity known as branding. The brand ambassador is meant to embody the corporate identity in appearance, demeanor, values and ethics. The key element of brand ambassadors lies in their ability to use promotional strategies that will strengthen the customer-product/service relationship and influence a large audience to buy and consume more. Predominantly, a brand ambassador is known as a positive spokesperson appointed as an internal or external agent to boost product/service sales and create brand awareness.
The brand being solved varies according with the distinctive brand values of the thing being communicated.
It was “York’s Dementia Without Walls initiative” from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that first got PC Andrews – based at the city’s train station for the British transport police – thinking about the condition of dementia. This alliance challenges the social isolation of people with dementia by encouraging businesses to reshape services with their needs and views in mind. Andrews arranged for people with dementia and their carers to review the station’s signage and facilities. And she organised day trips with free travel from the train companies, in a bid to boost their confidence.
Also, “Dementia Friends” is an Alzheimer’s Society initiative about giving more people an understanding of dementia and the small things that could make a difference to people living in their community. By 2015, the organisers want there to be a million people with the know-how to help people with dementia feel understood and included in their community. The initiative was fully launch in mid-February 2013 after the initial announcement in November 2012. “Dementia Friends Champions” are volunteers who talk to people about being a Dementia Friend in their communities after attending a training course and receiving ongoing support.
What is and what isn’t a “Dementia Friend” is discussed on this website page. As such it can be argued that they’re not “brand ambassadors” for the Alzheimer’s Society, but brand ambassadors for the ‘Dementia Friends’ programme. These are characteristics of ‘brand ambassadors’, and it’s interesting to note how much in common they share qualities with those who’ve completed the ‘Dementia Champion’ training. For example, it’s helpful if you’re a bit technically savvy. If you’ve successfully completed a Champions’ training course, you will be given a code that will give you access to resources and tools that will help you set up and run a Dementia Friends’ information session. You can also sign up to their e-newsletter, which will have information and ideas tailored to people who have successfully completed Champions’ training courses. Generally, it’s also useful if brand ambassadors are “passionate in using the social media tools in campaigning for [the] brand”.
The Alzheimer’s Society have protected their visual mark for “Dementia Friends” on the trademark register for the IPO, as trademark UK00002640312. If you’ve done the Dementia Champions training, you can’t really change it a bit such that you retain the ability to call your programme ‘Dementia Friends’. Aside from the fact ‘Dementia Friends’ is one manifestation of dementia-friendly communities in this jurisdiction, through the use of the ‘Dementia Champions’, this policy in this form has taken on a rather territorial nature. It’s though worth noting that the ‘Dementia Champion’ is not, according to this webpage, an Alzheimer’s Society volunteer (although some Dementia Friends Champions may choose to become one or be one already), nor an Alzheimer’s Society contractor/representative.
Nobody is of course ‘blaming’ these ambassadors (leaders and team players) for promoting their organisations in their own particular way. Nor can they be faulted for promoting dementia awareness, a truly admirable mission. But the question is whether the concept of ‘dementia friendly communities’ has to be so territorial to make it operationally manageable, or whether the philosophy to be embraced is actually one of a wider social network.
A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user fora that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.
The University of Tasmania’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Understanding Dementia, is a 9-week online course that builds upon the latest in international research on dementia. It’s free and anyone can register. The curriculum draws upon the expertise of neuroscientists, clinicians and dementia care professionals in the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre.
“As my blog becomes more exposed, so do I! The wonders of the internet, and having global networks and new friends never ceases to amaze me, a farm kid who spent the earliest part of her life without electricity or running water. I’ve become slightly involved with some delightful researchers from Tasmania, and at their request, I am very happy to give their new course a plug here.”
But even MOOCs are not without their critics.
John Hennessy, the computer scientist who heads the Californian university, said such courses were too large to engage and motivate most students successfully. Only 4-5 per cent of the people who sign up for a course at Coursera, another MOOC pioneer to spin out of Stanford, get to the end. MOOC benefits include the fact they can be done in any language or multiple languages, using any online tools, escape time zones and physical boundaries, make it easier to lower barriers to student entry, and enhance personal learning environment. However, MOOC critics argue that the MOOCs tend to be equally territorial.
Of course, the wonderful outcome is that dementia is being promoted, in a way never known before in England. And there’s no harm in promoting individual charities, provided that all initiatives are ultimately collaborating to the same purpose, especially if these charities can generate funds for attracting world leaders in wellbeing as well as research. The actual definition of ‘community’ is though an interesting one, if you consider that the whole world is a community of sorts. However, it might be a focus of further work what sets different dementia-friendly communities, and what might be the best ways for participants, for example through MOOCs or ‘brand ambassadors’, to set themselves apart too.
The numbers are very tight because of the venue in Camden.
Do you remember when you used to prepare Cocoa Pops cakes for kids’ birthday parties? Yes, it’s at least that level of excitement and more.
But I am now extremely excited about our private get-together to talk about issues raised in my book ‘Living well with dementia‘. Thanks to Amazon (at last), this book for the time-being is available to order for next-day delivery.
Not being invited to my private book launch, however, has absolutely no significance.
The venue is very small, and it’s been very difficult co-ordinating it thus far.
The guests are: Beth Britton, Charmaine Hardy (and sons), Darren Gormley, Edana Minghella, Gill Phillips (‘Whose Shoes’), Rachel Niblock, James Murray-White, Jo Moriarty, Lee, Lucy Jane Marsters, Margaret Kilby, Marian Naidoo, Mike Clark, Neil Chadborn, Dr Peter Gordon, Shaun Naidoo, Simona Florio, Thomas Whitelaw, Vidal Andreas, Amanda Ramsay, Gillian Nineham, Shirley Ayres, Zoe Harris, Ken Howard, Sally Marciano, Jane Samuels and Tony Jameson-Allen.
I’ve never met some of my guests, but I know them all well through Facebook or Twitter.
It has the feeling of a wedding reception in fact.
I wonder if I should get some special badges for what is effectively a #tweetup?
Indeed, I am looking forward to thanking Charmaine in person for permission to use the photography of her poppy – which was chosen by my publishers out of the ones proposed to them.
I’m also hoping Dr Mitul Mehta and family will be able to ‘drop in’. Despite being a Senior Lecturer at the world-famous Institute of Psychiatry, in their neuroimaging division, Mitul found my discussion of the problems in early cognitive diagnosis of dementia helpful. I also made him read my book recently!
I am excited that Tommy Whitelaw has accepted an invitation to come from Scotland. The distance is perhaps prohibitively long, but in any case I will be massively singing Tommy’s praises. Tommy is genuine. And he’s also a Glaswegian! An amazing contributor, who’s made a massive paradigm shift through his groundbreaking work with Alliance Scotland.
Norman McNamara, in the spirit of all good awards ceremonies, ‘can’t be there’ (the distance from Torbay is prohibitively long.) Nonetheless, Norman is recording a message on YouTube which I hope to be playing in our book launch. It’s impossible to give an account for Norman’s unique accomplishments in this area.
Not only has Norman got a huge amount of organic goodwill and love for his ‘Purple Angel Ambassadors’, but Norman has brought about a discussion on the potential merits of GPS trackers to mitigate against wandering. Whatever one’s precise views, which tend to be always sophisticated and deeply felt, this debate is much needed in my view. I am trying to make suitable arrangements for Purple Angels themselves to be represented in person.
It would be very early for Kate Swaffer to ‘Skype’-in, for Sunday morning her time in Adelaide. I am thinking of recording message by Kate especially for my guests. Kate, living with a dementia, is one of the most well liked and respected advocates for dementia internationally.
