There were 21 members this evening at the carers group meeting, with Dr Angela and Andrew from Carlton Court Care Home. The session was run by Kevin and Keren this evening as Lisa was at another work meeting.

The first topic of conversation was asking any easy ways to teach a partner information about running of the house if the other husband or wife had always done this throughout the relationship . Age UK website have something called a life book to help with this.
www.ageuk.org.uk

034568518061
Ref. ALL025

A reduction of appetite and food eaten was next discussed. This brought about various ideas to encourage people to eat more. There was a suggestion to keep a food diary for a few days to monitor this. NB The drink bottles of Ensure that can be prescribed through GPs were not encouraged as they are an expensive resource for the NHS (£5 per bottle - as they have a huge mark-up on them when prescribed) Alternative drinks can be made up at home including crushed up vitamin tablets including a zinc tablet. Andrew was going to provide the group with “an ensure alternative” recipe.

Andrew also was helpful with the next topic; Lifting and handling. He said he could provide some further information and pointed the group to some YouTube online training. Kevin shared a device that he had at home for helping stand up and others discussed bedrails. It was mentioned that as carers we must be very aware of our own back care!

There was a couple of recommendations for chiropodists that are not too expensive and will do home visits:
Rosemary charges approximately £30 (Maurice to provide phone number)
Nigel Hurst in North Finchley (028) 8446 0041 or 07956 827885
Andrew mentioned any extra support needed for this we could look into North Central London ‘NCL’ CCG?

For the last half an hour of the session we went round and asked anyone who hadn’t spoken of any issues they may like to raise. A couple of people said they just enjoyed listening and being part of the group learning from others rather than speaking out.

The subject of Family members that had not been in contact recently was mentioned. Asking would it be a good idea to pretend to send flowers from them to make the person living with dementia feel better? Some members of the group  felt this could be a nice and harmless gesture!

Finally, a question was raised that as restrictions are now lifting re meeting up outdoors from Monday 29th of March, would care homes be following the same rules and allow more visits in their gardens. Andrew said they are still waiting for public-health England to issue these guidelines,  then individual care homes would have to do their own risk assessments.

Everyone was thanked and the meeting closed at 8.35pm