Shelley Vaillancourt, Executive Director for the Alzheimer Society of Cornwall and District (ASCD), Cornwall Mayor Bernadette Clement and ASCD President George Knizenic hoisted the blue ASCD flag to mark the start of the Alzheimer’s Awareness month, on Monday January 6, 2020 in Cornwall, Ont. Francis Racine/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia Network
The Alzheimer Society of Cornwall and District (ASCD) is hoping to eliminate the stigma surrounding dementia, which affects thousands of residents in eastern Ontario.
“You probably have heard someone say that they had forgotten something, so they must have Alzheimer’s,” said Shelley Vaillancourt, executive director of the ASCD, during a flag-raising ceremony at the Justice Building on Monday. “That’s the stigma we’re trying to eliminate. You wouldn’t say you have cancer if you had a bump on your skin.”
Together with Cornwall Mayor Bernadette Clement and George Knizevic, president of the ASCD, Vaillancourt raised the organization’s blue flag in honour of January being proclaimed Alzheimer’s Awareness month.
“Even for us, as an Alzheimer Society, sometimes people will tell us that the person they care for doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, they have vascular dementia,” said Vaillancourt. “We serve all dementias, not just Alzheimer’s.”
Yet although the older members of the population are oftentimes more at risk to develop the disease, Vaillancourt stressed it isn’t always the case. Nationally, 16,000 Canadians under the age of 65 are currently living with Alzheimer’s.
“We need to re-look at how we perceive dementia and how we can provide support to those affected by it,” said Vaillancourt. “I’ve known someone affected by the disease that was in their 30s. Typically it’s in their 40s or 50s.”
According to Vaillancourt, the high proportion of seniors residing in the area has led to a rise in dementia cases in the region. She also highlighted the efforts undertaken by the city in order to make Cornwall a dementia-friendly community.
“The city has done pretty well in terms of the training,” said Clement. “In my other workplace at the legal clinic, we did that as well and what we find with that training is that it’s not just dementia-friendly, it’s accessibility friendly.”
The Cornwall Police Service (CPS) also undertakes yearly training in dealing with residents with dementia. The CPS also offers the Vulnerable Persons Registry, used to provide police and other emergency services with vital information that can be used to locate or communicate with a vulnerable person during an emergency situation.
“We’ve brought in the ASCD annually to train the officers in how to deal with people with dementia as first responders,” said Knizevic, who also happens to be a staff-sergeant with the CPS. “They can identify individuals suffering from dementia and can therefore help them get the proper help.”
Although Knizevic couldn’t provide an exact amount of how many cases of dementia the CPS has dealt with within the past few years, he said the number is high.
“It is quite common,” he said. “It’s individuals that are missing and then from there, we identify them. The Vulnerable Persons Registry provides us with added support, so that when someone does go missing, we know where we can look for them, whether it’s at the park or at Tim Hortons.”
The ASCD also highlighted the third year of the I live with dementia. Let me help you understand campaign. The latter saw Canadians living with dementia to go public in an effort to change hearts and minds and tackle discrimination they experience.
Since the campaign’s launch, over 60 Canadians with dementia, including caregivers, have gone public with their story. One of them was Lyne, an HR professional from Quebec who had to mover her 63-year-old husband Yves into long-term care following his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
“The lack of understanding and fear of Alzheimer’s creates discomfort and sadness, against which people stay, focused on their own pain,” she said. “People tend to walk away and forget about us. We feel isolated.”
