Veronica Telfer's Dementia Journey (as told by her family)

Veronica’s Story

• Veronica is a lovely, Jamaican lady with a big heart. She was 1/12 children and worked hard for her community. She had a particular interest in mental health support for Afro- Caribbean people who tended not to use services like these which were available to them.
• She attended the University of Kent and became an informal educator. She bid for funds from the national lottery and ran her own organisation supporting Afro-Caribbean people with a range of mental health issues for 15 years.
• She enabled people to access local services that most of us will take the granted for example go to pub, have fun at allotments, Christmas parties the seaside and even abroad to France.

Stress

• Veronica took on on quite a lot of stress due to running this program but a lot of stress also fell upon family members to help her continue to build and maintain the success of the program.
• It is believed that stress is a contributory factor to dementia
• In 2012 Veronica’s husband was diagnosed with cancer and she went into panic mode as a result of constant worry about his health.
• 2012 also marked the deterioration of Veronica’s mental health. She started to forget having hospital appointments. This memory loss also lead to other things such as arguments with her daughter
• Veronica then had a series of blackouts which turned out to be mini strokes. Veronica developed mixed vascular dementia a result of this which subsequently leads to deterioration of the brain which is permanent. The role of her family is now how to manage it.
• In 2013 Veronica continued to deteriorate - accusing people of moving items which she could not find in her home.

Regression

• Veronica has lived with dementia for 7 years. She has regressed to the stage where she can’t feed herself, doesn’t know the difference between a mobile phone or remote control and doesn’t recognise herself in the mirror.
• The family discussed how this ongoing loss of a loved one is very difficult to comprehend and how important it is to understand, accept and be open to the range of emotional responses which you as family members may experience.
• Different family memories and experiences of Veronica
• Veronica has 2 grandchildren Paris (25 years old) and Asia who is 16.
• Paris who at 25 has seen the best bits of grandma before she was ill.
• Asia has only had 11 good years with her grandmother and is on a different journey to her sister.
• Veronica’s husband is in essence losing his wife and has more pressure placed on him as a carer
• Samantha (Asia and Paris’ mum) has lost ‘her girl’/’confidant’/’best friend’

Veronica’s family describe her as in essence being trapped within her own body. She wants to communicate but is frustrated. She sees the family around her but can’t interject with her own opinions and is almost almost in a trance like state. She seeks comfort through humming.

We would like to thank our wonderful student Asia and her family for sharing what must be a very difficult and painful experience with our Health and Social care students and Sociology students. The love that this family have for each other was exceptionally evident. We wish them all the best in the future.

Big thanks goes to Mrs Eyiah for organising the event.