
Living well at home with dementia
Helping a person with dementia to live at home is not always easy, and can require planning and ingenuity. Depending on the individual and the stage of their illness (mild, moderate or severe) practical strategies can reduce confusion, increase comfort and enhance independence, and some useful tips are: In general: Keep the home environment familiar, this requires less mental processing Use slip resistant surfaces Make use of natural light to aid orientation Keep the temperat

Mysterious migraine
Having a headache can make it hard enough during a busy day let alone any added symptoms of migraine. Migraine is extremely common and can vary widely between individuals, often with a one-sided or spreading type headache, sound or light intolerance, visual sparkles, spots or dots, nausea and sometimes vomiting. Speech, sensation or movement can be affected and people may be concerned that they are experiencing a stroke or other emergency. Migraine can in fact alter the risk

What causes a fall?
Falls in older patients are a major and preventable cause of morbidity and the requirement for higher levels of care, as well as mortality. Of the face of it, it seems simple to be able to avoid a fall; just be attentive, careful, 'watch where you are going' but falls are complex and are due to multiple factors based upon not only the physical state a person is in at the time but their environment. Our senses are vital to avoiding a fall, from an awareness of how are bodies a