Actress Shobna Gulati launches campaign against dementia

LONDON: Actress Shobna Gulati has shared her own family’s experience of dementia to launch a new campaign — Talk Dementia — from Alzheimer’s Research UK, which aims to help people understand what dementia is and how it affects someone.

According to a statement, Talk Dementia features a film in English, Hindi and Urdu that will be shared across social media through June and July.850,000 people in the UK are living with dementia today and estimates suggest there will be a seven-fold increase in the number of people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities who develop dementia in the next 40 years.

Gulati has written a blog for the charity to reveal the impact this has had on her own experience of caring for her mother, who is living with vascular dementia. She said: “There is still a real taboo around dementia, especially in South Asian communities where the condition is often brushed under the carpet. My mum speaks English, Punjabi and Hindi and the confusing words describing dementia across languages only exacerbates out-of-date and unhelpful attitudes towards the condition.

“Dementia is not ‘madness’ and it’s not something to be ashamed of – we are all human beings and dementia is caused by physical diseases. I’ve experienced the isolation when communities aren’t able to open up, share experiences and support each other.”Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Community Health and Learning Foundation worked with South Asian community groups in the Midlands to explore perceptions of dementia.