There are currently around 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, this is projected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040.  Two thirds of the cost of dementia is paid by people with dementia and their families.  Unpaid carers supporting someone with dementia save the UK economy £13.9 billion a year.  There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease or any other type of dementia (source the Alzheimer's Society).

​The long goodbye ....

Dementia is something that has come to challenge me and my family, now and in the past.  There are very few families untouched by this cruel disease and yet there is no cure and it is very difficult to access help, carers feel alone and forgotten.  Care is horrifically expensive and many don't even know how they can get help.

Dementia has many causes (and sometimes there is confusion over the term dementia and Alzheimer's), Alzheimer's is a disease that causes dementia.  Other causes of dementia include vascular dementia, lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease for example.  However, Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia.  The Alzheimer's Society explain it here.

September is World Alzheimer's Month with World Alzheimer's Day being today, Monday 21st September 2020.

​And I wanted to do my part to raise awareness.  Especially now.  The situation for visiting loved ones in care homes due to the Covid-19 restrictions is horrifying and really unacceptable.   The suffering for those living alone with dementia and the way lockdown exacerbated decline for dementia has been dreadfully sad.  So many forgotten victims of Covid-19.

This blog post is as much about me researching osteoporosis as it is about giving my readers some information of what it is all about.  My knowledge up until now has been that women are more at risk of osteoporosis than men (but men can get it too) and that our declining hormones in midlife are a risk factor, I also know that taking HRT and doing regular exercise, especially strength training can really help reduce your risk.  But when I was approached to write a blog post about it, I obviously wanted to find out more and check my facts ... and there is much more to it, for starters I learnt that as well as osteoporosis there is osteopenia and brittle bone disease as well - read on!

Now as you know I am a huge supporter of women taking HRT if they possibly can and that doing regular exercise and especially incorporating strength training into your routine can have a massive positive impact on our health overall in midlife.  And maintaining a healthy weight is important, we all know the risks associated with obesity but losing a lot of weight can also reduce our bone density.

Towards the end of lockdown, I met Nikki from Creative DeZigns for the first time, she had got in touch with me to ask if I would be interested in working with her, trying some of the styles from her lovely range of cotton and sustainable clothing and maybe sharing my thoughts on the blog.  I suggested we meet up and chat, I wanted to find out more about her and her small ethical fashion business.  We hit it off immediately and I loved her story.  I loved the clothes too!  So I asked if Nikki would be happy to share her story in more detail on my blog.  So here it is, as part of my (somewhat irregular) Embracing Life (in Midlife) series.

In this interview series, I invite inspirational women, normal women like you and me, who are busy getting on with it all and keeping all the plates spinning, to tell me about their life and their business.  I am always amazed at their stories.  And I am very impressed with how they manage to do it all. 

Nikki is no exception, she has two grown up children, she spent a large part of her childhood growing up in South Africa and she then took over Creative DeZigns form her mother and has enjoyed taking the business in a new direction whilst staying true to its original ethos.  

I really loved reading Nikki's responses to my questions, I am sure you will agree, that she is certainly very talented and very inspirational.  Do take a few moments to read what she has to say and support her small business!  I've been looking forward to sharing this post!

Hi, how are you all?  I know I popped up last week with my 'new year goals' but I am hoping that this week is my proper return to routine.  Is there really such a thing post-lockdown?  I cannot believe what has happened in 2020 ... it still feels surreal and well you couldn't make it up could you?  I have gone from mild acceptance in the early days back in March to feeling totally lost and confused and frustrated with the conflicting decisions and the inconsistency.  I really worry about the long term implications that I suspect could be far worse than the number of Covid deaths, whilst these are all terribly sad, any loss of life is, but we are ignoring the implications for mental health, for disadvantaged children, for victims of domestic abuse, for those with dementia, the lack of healthcare and testing for cancer, heart disease and the like, the rise in the number of suicides, I could go on and on.  We have virtually shut down our travel industry.  We were asked to 'eat out to help out' at the same time as the Government announcing that we had to tackle obesity.  I appreciate that any Government put in this position would have struggled but I am feeling more than a bit let down I will be honest.

From a personal perspective, my plans for 2020 changed rather rapidly!   I had been expecting an empty nest from early spring.  My son was in the process of buying his first home and then it got delayed.  My daughter was at uni but had to come home.  So a lot later than expected, some sort of normal is back this weekend.  My son has finally been able to move and my daughter heads back to Bath on Sunday.  I appreciate I had it easier than most though, although there were times when things did get pretty bad!