Celebrating an update:
My Dementia Companion is now officially listed as a key dementia resource for health professionals and carers in the HealthPathways Melbourne. They are an evidence-based online decision tool for clinicians to make the best decisions, together with their clients, at the point of care. It’s a privilege to be supporting families and professionals from the community, Alfred, Austin Health, Eastern Health, Monash Health, Northern Health, The Royal Melbourne, Western Health, The Royal Women’s etc. Thank you Eastern Melbourne PHN, North Western Melbourne PHN, Sharon and Cherylynn for your trust.
As I matured to become a clinical pharmacist, their resources have been extremely helpful in guiding my (and many of my doctor, nursing and allied health colleague’s) recommendations. It’s a privilege to be included and we will continue to improve to help more people!
Improvements:
Based on feedback, we have curated a new Section called: "Helping your loved one when he/she fails to recognise others", to help your cope with this common challenge. It is located under the Topic: "Simple techniques to cope with changes at home" (you can browse or search for it under the "More Support" tab). We noticed many of our users are supporting a loved one in the later stages of dementia. To further support these carers, have added more later stage support Topics in the onboarding Q5 as a result, and in the process of curating a dedicated Topic to residential aged care. Because your relationship and life doesn’t end when your loved one moves into a home. We hope to have this Topic done in the next couple of weeks.
Featured Tip:
We've received a great deal of positive feedback from carers and professionals alike on our practical Tips feature. Tips are posted by carers using the tool and can be found in each section of support information. We thought we should celebrate their success by sharing them in our newsletter.
We’d like to give Kevin from NSW, who is looking after his wife, the honour of being our first featured Tip in our newsletter. He shared it under the Section “Planning for your respite” within the Topic “Respite care for Kevin”:
"I take Mary regularly to our daughters where they fuss over her and wash and dye her hair as needed which she just loves."
We thought this Tip was great because of its simplicity. It offers Kevin some respite and simultaneously allows Mary to connect with her daughters. It also has elements of reminiscence therapy, which brings Mary back to a happy memory. It’s also so important for Kevin to recognise this as a win! We’d like to extend a big thank you to their lovely daughters to pamper over Mary! If you have a successful technique or “trick”, don’t forget to share it to help others. You can do it in the tool by clicking on “Share my Tip to help others”, or contact us via Facebook, Instagram or email.
Team update:
Our amazing volunteering team is organically growing! We’d like to welcome our first intern, Adrian, who will be focusing on how we can spread the positive impact of the My Dementia Companion tool to more people.
Don't forget...
We are a passion project with only one mission, to help people impacted by dementia. So please give us feedback on the tool, our newsletter or anything else, so we can improve what we do and better them. You can do this by contacting us.