World Alzheimer's Day

World Alzheimer's Day, September 21st of each year, is a day on which Alzheimer's organisations around the world concentrate their efforts on raising awareness about Alzheimer's and dementia.

We decided to contribute to this day, by having an awareness session on the eve of World Alzheimer's Day for any family members of our residents living with Alzheimer's or dementia.  The event was open to members of the public too, and we had a very big response with close to 130 people attending.

Loraine Schirlinger of the Gauteng branch of Alzheimer's SA presented the informative talk about Alzheimer's and dementia and we had some tea afterwards and established who of the people that attended would be interested in attending a support group here at Elphin Lodge.

We honoured World Alzheimer's Day - or as we called it "Memory Day" - with a tea party at the pond for all the care centre residents. Paws for People visited us for some quality time with their beautiful and well-trained therapy dogs. Many of our volunteers assisted us on the morning and they spent time with each residents to get a special memory written down on a piece of paper. We then sent the memories up into the air, attached by ribbon to brightly coloured helium balloons.

Here are some of the pictures:

Paws for People at work.

Care centre resident Marie Diesel enjoying the company of one of the beautiful dogs.

The helping ladies getting ready to send the memories up into the sky.

Up and away they go.

The treats were the main attraction as usual. 

We had a wonderful morning together and made some new memories for Ron Smith Care Centre...