Preparedness for when

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

I read that earlier in the day and, although I agree with the STEM skillsets in point of being able to make a timely return to business as usual, I was surprised at the list of important things. Of course, business as usual in an advanced oil-driven society might not ever be achievable.

The article reads like business as usual is the only desirable outcome/

See a cut & paste of it below with my comments in blue.

1. Making and repairing tools Unless everything currently in existance evaporates, there will be no shortage of tools around to scavenge. 2-3 garden sheds and 2-3 house contents are likely to provide all the tools needed to build/ repair most things, up to and including building a simple wooden dwelling.

That might be a tad optimistic round here- if you hit my house, there's a decent range of tools (and someone waiting to ensure they stay available to me) but it appears that is no longer very common - there's a local freecycle group where someone has just given away a paste table, bought to decorate one room. Quite a few people clamouring for the loan of a drill and a person who can use it to put some pictures up.

...

3. Making chemical substances Really? Which substances does he mean, just about anything is a chemical substance. Like vinegar, which will be a very useful resource for the food preserving.

There's a quote in the header "Fewer than half of Londoners know how to make chemical substances like fuel"
I'd be surprised if 50% of Londoners (or people from anywhere else, including Aberdeen, or even just employees of Esso) knew how to make refined fuel. Actually I'd be surprised if 50 % of people could lay and light a wood or coal fire.

5. Basic first aid Should be first or second on the list. If you screw up here, that cut could get infected and kill you.

...
Yup, I can see a computer programmer with a severe case of the squits trying to make a case to a farming community about why he is an essential person to take into their clan.

That's me up the creek then, though not as far up it as a politician might be - thanking goodness for small mercies.

melodramaticme

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Re hallucinations - I've not heard of anyone I am aware of with dementia having that. Though I guess that could be a symptom some people get. That's got me wondering what sort of hallucinations anyone that got that aspect would have? Would they be the sort of hallucinations that just boiled down to seeing stuff that really WAS there (but other people couldn't see it) - eg my mother said she saw a member of the family one time after they died (and I believe her) OR genuine hallucinations iyswim?

My father had Alzheimer's and as it got worse his hallucinations became more and more bizarre ; dancing girls six inches high entering through plug sockets, babies born from the arm of a chair, a market stall appearing in the middle of the living room, hs home becoming a strange place where as he left a room it turned through 180 degrees and he was in an exact replica of the one he had just left.... He would leave the house and not be able to find his way home, phone people (strangers) in the middle of the night to get the police to free him from the warehouse he believed he was locked into. None of these things actually happened. He forgot he was married to my mother, or that he had daughters : he thought I employed him to look after the place he lived in. So dementia hallucinations are very upsetting for the people around the sufferer as they seem to disappear into a world that no one else can see or experience. The sufferer can also get very frightened because no-one else can see what they do.

mardatha

Yes been there with my dad. Totally horrible for the family - but he was quite happy and calm.

[Deleted User]

Dementia robs the sufferer of their soul, makes then a stranger living in an unrecognisable desert and cuts to the core when they no longer recognise family members. The confusion makes them unpredictable in behaviour and the hallucinations you can't share make them distressed and agitated beyond belief as they think you're lying to them and it's a conspiracy!!! My late MIL suffered with Louie Body Dementia and went from a confused lady who had forgotten how to make a cuppa to an unpredictable and often violent stranger who tried to strangle anyone who couldn't share her world with all the hallucinatory strangenesses that it contained. She lived in a 2 bed bungalow but in her world it was a massive hotel with multitudinous rooms and she would say she could never find her own room because the people running the hotel moved all her possesions every day, she asked my DH one day if he was one of the removal men as she'd been watching him in the garden for 3 weeks and thought he should go home to his family, she tried to strangle my FIL because she was sure he was poisoning her, she came shopping with me and walked round the supermarket holding my arm for a couple of hours and when we got back to the car she rounded on me and asked where I'd been because she hadn't seen me since we arrived, she tried to break any mirror we came across as that 'other girl' was wearing 'her' clothes because she didn't recognise herself any longer. Dementia is a wicked and hurtful illness to have to deal with from all sides including the sufferers.

Siebrie

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Re hallucinations - I've not heard of anyone I am aware of with dementia having that. Though I guess that could be a symptom some people get. That's got me wondering what sort of hallucinations anyone that got that aspect would have? Would they be the sort of hallucinations that just boiled down to seeing stuff that really WAS there (but other people couldn't see it) - eg my mother said she saw a member of the family one time after they died (and I believe her) OR genuine hallucinations iyswim?

My aunt has rapidly evolving dementia, and she got very mistrusting and afraid. She would call the police 6 times a day to report strangers trying to enter her house; she tore out the built-in ceiling lights, convinced there were cameras in there as well; she would report her sons and other relatives coming into her house and taking things. She has now been moved to safe accommodation, and seems to relax.

melodramaticme

My mother looked after him at home, but he was constantly seeing her as other people. If she did a job that he thought was "man's work" he would tell us about the man who came to do the job, she was sometimes the nurse who took care of him, sometimes a nasty person who told him off ; she tried to remind him of their life together, showing him their wedding photos, talking about the times they had spent together, but the memories had disappeared.

Frugalsod

mardatha wrote: »

Meanmarie when I hit Connemara the high rents won't bother me, cos I goin to win the lottery before I go

Same here but I really need to take part to increase my chances of winning.

fuddle

Such sad stories. I only really have experience of sufferers who are alone and don't really have family support but yes, I have been hurt by confused and scared sufferers. Dom carers and carers have quite a bad reputation and rightly so. I could share stories that would disgust you. It is a low paid job with no career prospects or need to educate. You can walk into the role having had a couple of hours induction in a class room. You can be alone after a couple of hours of shadowing an 'experienced' carer. The role needs a special kind of person, someone with maturity, understanding and a calmness. Someone wanting to make a difference. The reality of it is it's an 'easy' job (if you're a slacker and dont actually care) that appeals to those who have no education. I don't want to appear phobic of overseas workers but they are the core of dom care where I lived. Of course there are problems when 93 year old war veteran suddenly has a man/woman of colour and different tongue come into their home wanting to undress and wash soneone who already is confused.

I despair of the whole sector but there are lovely good carers out there. The whole system needs a shake up but it's an expensive business and cheap and willing workers are welcomed with open arms.

The role I adored. It's the most fulfilled I have ever been in the work place but the job, the expectations and all that is wrong with the whole system is not for me any more and it's about self respect. Not because I don't want to deliver personal care. I seriously haven't got a problem with that - I surprise myself what latex gloves allow me to do! it's about being repected as a worker and as dom carer I felt stressed, pressured and used. Fancy trying to better oneself and walking into the office and being that stressor and user. No wonder I lasted 6 months. A very good male candidate wanted to step into my shoes but was refused because he couldn't cover as much emergency situations with him being a male and the manager and supervisor were worried they would have to do it. ho hum.

RAS

fuddle - I think that good dom care workers are amazing and badly treated. We had one for mum who was the only person she trusted but paid crap (more than the others though). Another actually tried nicking stuff and it was not hallucinations because other people had made the same allegation.

One of the biggest issues however was that the agencies could not get it together to send the same person, not even every time but even each week so that mum had time to accept that person. Expecting a confused older person to accept a complete newbie to bathe them is a bit of an ask, even dressing takes a bit of acceptance.

moneyistooshorttomention

fuddle wrote: »

It's about difficulty processing information really MITSTM. Problems around perception can induce seeing things that aren't there because of the difficulty processing what really is there mixed with feelings at the time. As an example a lady who was pleased to see me told me I had a halo atop of my head or once went to take a cloth from me as a cup of tea... I guess because she could do with a cup of tea. She would often question if I had brought a friend because she could see two of me. I think it's important to remember that dementia is an umbrella term and that there are many illnesses that effect information processing and memory, each of them with different symptoms leading to further complications like sight and hearing loss, anxiety or depression or malnutrition. Each bring their own toll on the body and need a myriad of medications. Some one with dementia would probably have a whole host of other medical issues but the label would probablt be dementia to you or I.

I don't know if you go in for holistic approaches MITSTM but one word for you if you fancy? tumeric

I most definitely do going for holistic approaches - and its pretty much the only approach I do do in fact. I've got a turmeric root sitting in my kitchen that I've got plans on trying out making myself some turmeric tea with shortly. I just gathered its a general thing re inflammation in the body (which science seems to be proving is at the root of much illness). I didn't know that was one of the things it was advocated for.

Maybe that will be mentioned in my latest uses-of-herbs book I've got - promptly pounced on the second I saw it had got a lot of new info. to me in there.

Your comment about the visions this lady saw would have had me wondering re the "halo round head" - as we do all have auras around us and I would have wondered if she was seeing something that really exists at that point (but its rarely seen). I see what you mean re the drink and yep...

Many years back I was sitting watching a speaker on a holistic subject and I haven't the foggiest what she said - as I was just fascinated thinking "Oh - it really IS possible to see auras - as I can spot hers loud and clear and its moving to and fro". She was someone I might have expected to have a particularly big and clear aura (ie I think she was a genuinely spiritual type person) and that was the first time I've ever spotted that phenomenon. I've seen a glimpse of one a few times since over the years on a few people and find it fascinating each time.

EDIT: but I totally see that it would be worrying to have people reporting to me that they'd seen a lot of the stuff people here have had reported to them. Has now got awful feeling that will be the next thing my friend is reporting to me about her mother...I hadn't realised that is possibly due on the "agenda".