Health & Wellbeing

People are being encouraged to become a Dementia Friend as Wolverhampton prepares to mark Dementia Awareness Week, which runs from Sunday 15 May to Saturday 21 May, 2016. The Dementia Friends programme, run by the Alzheimer’s Society, is the biggest ever initiative to alter people’s perceptions of dementia. It aims to get people change the way they think, talk and act about the condition by learning more dementia and the small ways they can help someone living with it.

Death is often a taboo subject but for the first time a group of local citizens, community organisations, undertakers, doctors and hospices has joined forces to raise awareness about the importance of talking about dying, death and bereavement. Under the name BrumYODO (giving a local spin to the national Dying Matters coalition strapline ‘You only die once’) the community collective aims to positively change attitudes and behaviours around talking about and planning for death, and the need for good end of life care for all.

With local and national elections just around the corner, physiotherapists have a ‘doorstep challenge’ for candidates seeking their vote. Candidates who unsuspectingly knock on the door of a physiotherapist will be asked to commit, if elected, to campaign for changes which are key to delivering better access to physiotherapy in their local area.

A groundbreaking partnership launched to help Birmingham's growing army of carers has won national recognition at the Third Sector 2016 Business Charity Awards. Forward Carers was commended for the work of Birmingham Carers Hub - an innovative service which offers thousands of family carers access to free support, emergency aid, respite breaks, essential training and wellbeing events.

Victoria Rawnsley from Great Barr is on her third visit to John Taylor Hospice after meeting the In-Patient Unit team for the first time in January. The 45-year-old had been feeling really low and wasn’t sure what to expect. By the time she went home, Victoria said her mood had lifted considerably and she felt more confident.

Wolverhampton will be marking Dementia Awareness Week with events and activities for people with dementia and their carers – from information and advice sessions to a charity football match at Molineux Stadium. The Alzheimer's Society is staging Dementia Awareness Week from Sunday 15 May to Saturday 21 May, 2016.

New research reveals that motorists who need glasses or contact lenses but don’t wear them whilst driving, increase their chance of an accident four-fold. One in six drivers have had an accident in the past two years but this increases to 67 per cent for those who need glasses or contacts but don’t always wear them.

The Department of Health and NHS England are starting to make progress with the actions needed to implement access and waiting time standards for people with mental health conditions, but much remains to be done, according to the National Audit Office. The report from the spending watchdog is the first in a planned programme of work on mental health.

A life-saving Birmingham organisation – born out of NHS cuts during its last re-organisation – has been recognised in the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise for its excellence in innovation. The Perinatal Institute, members of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, was founded by Professor Jason Gardosi in 2013 and has received the coveted award for developing a safer method of monitoring the growth of babies during pregnancy.

When you look in the mirror, how youthful is the face staring back? Proving that age really is nothing but a number, in recent years there has been a growing focus on what our biological age, rather than our chronological age, can tell us about our overall health and longevity. Determined by lifestyle approaches to stress, diet, exercise and sleep; recent studies reveal that one in five people in the UK were found to have a biological age more than eight years older than their chronological age, effectively losing almost a decade of their life.

Modern day living is busy so to help people find time to think about their health, One You, with the help of Dr Hilary, is taking to a bus stop in Trinity Street, Coventry, to ask people how they really are. This is one of nine state-of-the-art interactive bus stops which are now live across England as part of Public Health England’s (PHE’s) One You campaign, to encourage adults to make simple changes to improve their health.

Shellie Taylor-Joyce swapped her text books in the West Midlands for the sub-zero temperatures of the Arctic during Easter – all in the name of John Taylor Hospice. Together with four friends, the 44-year-old teaching assistant from Castle Vale endured cold winds and treacherous trails to travel by dog sled from Oteren in Norway to Jukkasjärvi in Sweden – a distance of more than 250km.

Two of Birmingham’s leading charities – Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer (LFBC) and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) Charity – are improving Breast Cancer services in the city, with the arrival of their jointly-funded mobile mammogram unit. Purchased by the two charities as part of their £1 Million Appeal, which was launched by Lord Digby Jones in 2013, the new mobile mammogram unit has arrived at Broad Meadow Heath Centre in Kings Norton.

It was a celebration of achievement as Dr Peter Lewis retired from his current post as Executive Medical Director at BSMHFT after 15 years of outstanding service to the trust and also the community. After qualifying as a Medical Officer in 1972 from the University of West Indies, and completing his higher training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he returned to the Caribbean to work as a consultant Psychiatrist at St Anne’s Hospital.

A Birmingham-based hospice is using sound therapy to support patients at end of life. Staff at John Taylor Hospice have added an innovative well-being project, called Life Echo, to the mix of activities and care services already offered to day hospice visitors. Through a series of one-to-one sessions, participants are encouraged to share their most positive memories of sound which are then recreated into short recordings for their personal use.