According to Health Promotion Board, Singapore, 1 in 10 people in Singapore suffers from dementia. This corresponds to 82000 people in 2018 and this number is projected to rise to 152,000 by 2030. That is another 8 year's time.
My mother is diagnosed to have Alzheimer's disease in 2017. However, she started showing signs of the dementia even before this.
Some of the signs of dementia are:
1) Forgetfulness that affects day-to-day function - She forgets to switch her stove during cooking
2) Difficulty in planning or solving problems - she does not plan her meals and she has expired dressings in the fridge
3) Confusion of time and place- she got lost when she visited her younger sister in 2016.
4) Difficulty in doing familiar tasks - she is unable to ensure that her food are cooked properly and stopped cooking.
5) Misplacing things- she spends a lot of time looking for misplaced keys, tissues and her identity card.
6) Withdrawal from work or social activities - she stopped attending her regular church activity
7) Changes in mood or behaviour as she stays alone in her own home
Chocolate hummus spread over bananas.
Preparation of various vegetables for toasting
Eversince her diagnosis, I am more aware of the need to prevent this disease and promoting health to reduce the risk of dementia in my other family members.
Often, it is not enough just to be aware of the disease itself. Many of us know that we need to change our lifestyle and adopt a healthy health behaviour like increasing physical activity and choosing a more healthy diet.
Yet I still find myself struggling to meet the recommend guidelines. However, I will not give up adopting the right health behaviour. I do so by doing step by step towards the goals.
Choosing Myhealthyplate by increasing the amount of vegetables and fruits that my family and I take. I will cut the fruits and serve them to my family. During meal times, I will also prepare toasted vegetables like capsicum, broccoli and sweet potato (using difference coloured vegetables like orange, green, yellow). Spinach can also be served in the soup I prepared in order to meet the half portion of the plate.
Changing to a healthier type of cooking method is also another way towards healthy eating. For example, instead of deep frying the salmon, I baked it in the oven and make it tastier with a tint of honey and lemon and herbs.
As my work is mainly desk bound, I make conscious effort to stand up every 1 hour for water break or toilet break. Whenever possible, I will stand up to do my work as well.
Being intentional on my physical activity: Though I was unable to fulfil the 150minutes of mild to moderate physical activity per week, I tried to go for morning walks (3 times a week) that allows me to complete 4000 steps each time.
Playing sports as a family increases the motivation to exercise. My family plays tennis once or twice a month in addition to their twice a week extra curriculum sports.
Promoting mental health and discussing and adopting healthy coping strategies at home
At meal times, my family discussed about various mental health issues, cyber bullying, coping strategies that will overcome these issues. We also engage in activities that are enjoyable.
My youngest daughter draws daily to destress
Eldest daughter reads and plays Genshin.
My husband goes for his virtual run.
I joined a caregiver support group, playing guitar.
Indeed, it is an ongoing journey that is intentional and requires discipline. We will continue to advocate for good health management so that we can live better quality of lives with our loved ones and friends.
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