Caring Together

1.1-Explain why it is important to recognise and respect an individual’s heritage.

It is important to recognise and respect an individual’s heritage because a heritage is the past life history of each individual. If we learn more about the heritage of a person we can identify the person’s character, like and dislikes and habits. By doing this you enable each individual to be themselves and feel valued while doing so. And also to feel accepted within the environment.

1.2-Compare the experience of dementia for an individual who has acquired it as an older person with the experience of an individual who has acquired it as a younger person.

It would not be much different between an older and younger person, they would both still experience the same effects that dementia brings to a person. However a younger person getting dementia would probably feel more affected as they may feel that its unfair that they have it so young when they have a lot of life left ahead of them, they also may not be able to deal with it very well as most people associate dementia with older people.

Their life will change so much and sometimes so quickly, they may have to leave work, stop driving etc. Then they would have to think about the help they would need, finance etc. which with so much happening and changing can lead to a lot of stress and then to depression in a person and sometimes more. Having dementia as an older person is probably more easier to deal with than getting it as a younger person because you have experienced a lot and lived a life so you would be more acceptant of it and deal with it a lot better.

1.3-Describe how the experience of dementia may be different for individuals:
-Who have a learning disability
-Who are from different ethnic backgrounds
-Who are at the end of life

An individual with learning difficulties may not understand what’s going on so could probably deal with it by just having the support of their careers, However the effects of dementia such as memory loss could annoy and stress the individual out which could lead to angry/frustrated behaviour which could or could not be out of character, which could then lead to challenging behaviour within the individual. An individual from different ethnic backgrounds may also not fully understand what’s going on, and may not know how to deal with it and ask for help and support. They may feel isolated and alone which could lead to other things.

An individual who is at the end of their life may be more acceptant of it, as they have had their life, done what they have wanted and are near the end of their life. Everybody with dementia may experience different emotions from another, some may be happy (for the extra help), others may be angry/frustrated, more confused than others. Some may still be dependant and others may be more reliant on carers and support.