Veronika Wild

  Image Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images As it happens, September is Dementia Awareness Month in Australia and World Alzheimer’s Month in other parts of the World. There is also a special World Alzheimer’s Day on September 21. st   Dementia is the blanket term for several forms of progressive cognitive decline, but Alzheimer’s Disease, itself representing at least three different conditions, accounts for about 60 – 80% of cases, so the two terms are often used interchangeably. However, neither is an inevitable consequence of ageing. In either case, Dementia is a growing problem around the world and is already the world’s 7 th leading cause of death. According to   Alzheimer’s Internationa l approximately 55 million people suffer from Dementia today with that number expected to rise to around 139 million by 2050. Apart from Climate Change, this is likely to become one of the biggest challenges societies will face in future.  The aim of such comme...

World Suicide Prevention Day – Sat 10 th September   Globally suicide remains a leading cause of death – ahead of   deaths from malaria, road accidents, homicide, malnutrition, natural disasters and even war, yet few countries have been able to reduce their suicide rates. In all countries the suicide rate for men is twice as high than for women and in some countries it is even higher. I’m not going to write a great deal about this today. A great deal has already been written. See for example the very detailed suicide prevention strategies which have already been published as part of the World Health Organisation’s LIVE LIFE Campaign, aspects of which have been successfully implemented in a number of countries. The suicide rate does vary greatly however both within and between countries - by culture, by religion, income levels and gender, so what works in one region may not work in another, but what seems to be lacking is not so much the how, or even resources, but ...