Did anyone listen to the LBC radio phone-in today with James O'brien?
The topic was PWD and he invited callers to let him know how they felt about being diagnosed with the disease or how carers were coping with the care. You can listen to the show via podcast on LBC.co.uk.
I felt the program was biased towards allowing the listeners to feel comfortably reassured about a diagnosis. With his disarming jokes linking filtered callers, most uninformed listeners would have been left feeling that dementia was a disease which could be easily managed. Not one caller was given the opportunity to describe in any detail the middle-to-end stages in an eloquent way. Notwithstanding the fact that a PWD would be unable to make THAT call anyway. Just wondered if anyone else felt let down by an opportunity to tell it like it is rather than the more sanitised version the public are fed.
To add insult to injury there is a reference on LBC's website regarding a caller who had recently been diagnosed and who fortunately is managing to keep mobile, has two daughters caring for him and is able to fully communicate (at the moment). He was held up as a shining example of how we can all cope with this diagnosis. I was so angry at the flippancy with which the presenter seemed to view this disease. It wasn't quite "take an aspirin and you'll be fine in the morning" but it wasn't far off either.
The topic was PWD and he invited callers to let him know how they felt about being diagnosed with the disease or how carers were coping with the care. You can listen to the show via podcast on LBC.co.uk.
I felt the program was biased towards allowing the listeners to feel comfortably reassured about a diagnosis. With his disarming jokes linking filtered callers, most uninformed listeners would have been left feeling that dementia was a disease which could be easily managed. Not one caller was given the opportunity to describe in any detail the middle-to-end stages in an eloquent way. Notwithstanding the fact that a PWD would be unable to make THAT call anyway. Just wondered if anyone else felt let down by an opportunity to tell it like it is rather than the more sanitised version the public are fed.
To add insult to injury there is a reference on LBC's website regarding a caller who had recently been diagnosed and who fortunately is managing to keep mobile, has two daughters caring for him and is able to fully communicate (at the moment). He was held up as a shining example of how we can all cope with this diagnosis. I was so angry at the flippancy with which the presenter seemed to view this disease. It wasn't quite "take an aspirin and you'll be fine in the morning" but it wasn't far off either.
