About me and this blog
I’m Swapna Kishore; I live in India and am a writer, blogger, and resource person for dementia/ caregiving in India. Through this blog, I share my personal stories, observations, and aha! moments related to my experiences and concerns on dementia and care in India.
My mother suffered from dementia. For well over a decade, her care occupied a significant part of my life and mind-share. It affected my choices, my priorities, my social circle (or lack thereof). It made me introspect about weird things like thoughts and memories and identity. I started this blog to share my experiences and insights, and also the mistakes I made as a caregiver. Caregiving can be isolating, and during my caregiving days, I used this blog to connect with and help others, and share my musings and concerns.
After my mother passed away, I have continued to blog, sometimes sharing more memories of te past, and at other times writing about my experiences and thoughts as a resource person for dementia caregivers. Blogging is rather sporadic now.
As I am deeply concerned about dementia care in India. I maintain an extensive resource site to help dementia caregivers in India: Dementia Care Notes. (The Hindi version of the site is at: Dementia Hindi). I also have a youtube channel for English and Hindi videos for caregivers. I have explained what I do in the sphere of dementia care here: The dementia care work I do. And if you want to help dementia home caregivers in India, do check out this section of ideas and resources for volunteers.
Oh, and I’ve also got some personal dementia-related videos on Youtube (English and Hindi), in the Youtube channel here.
If you are interested, you can see the dementia/ care resources I have prepared in this section:
Dementia/ Care Resources for caregivers in India
- Websites for dementia care in India (English, Hindi)
- Videos for dementia care in India (English, Hindi)
- Documents/ presentations for dementia care in India (English, Hindi)
- Other published dementia-related articles/ interviews
I have also put together my ideas on what concerned persons can do, and these are available in this section:
Resources: If you want to help caregivers/ spread dementia awareness
- Understand dementia and care in the Indian context
- Overview of current and future prevalence, care challenges, and possible actions
- India’s cultural context and its impact on care
- Apply available dementia/ caregiving material to the Indian context
- Introduction: dementia home care in India (includes download)
- Understand caregiving realities, issues, challenges
- Policies, schemes, laws in India relevant for the dementia domain
- Action Areas to Contribute to, and Possible Approaches
- Community-level work: A Dementia-Friendly India
- Focus: Improve Dementia Awareness
- Focus: Create Dementia Services and Products, Facilitate Support Forums
- Project ideas for students, artists, and others
You can connect with me on various other forums, like Facebook, Linkedin, and Slideshare, or check out my profile at Swapna Kishore @ Google+To contact me, see the page: Contact
(For the more curious, I have a personal website that gives details about me and my other interests and activities.)
Profile on Facebook
Profile on slideshare.net
Profile on LinkedIn®
Youtube channel of Dementia Care Notes 
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Oh, and here's 
Beautiful insight – I enjoyed the musings…
Hi Swapna,
I found your blog while looking for dementia related organisations in Bangalore. I think my dad is at the MCI stage and am trying to find a way that we could care for him and have him live a full life in Bangalore. Could you recommend a nursing service in Bangalore? I would be very grateful for any information about services (commercial or otherwise) that are available in Bangalore.
Thanks
-Vivek
Hi, thanks for visiting my blog. I have replied to you by email.
Hi, I am uma. I live in Delhi. My father in law has Alzheimer’s and as I was reading through your blog, I saw so many similarities, in the joys and travails of caregiving.
I dont even know why i am writing this comment. A blog friend said i should visit yours and i am very glad.
Hi Uma, glad to ‘see’ you here. I just read your blog entry about your father-in-law, and can relate to your situation.
Stay in touch!
Dear Swapna, I have read your blog entries … your joys and travails of caregiving.
I had today scheduled a couple of hours to ‘search’ for caregivers who may help a core group of 4 women start a Caregivers Link. I came across your blog after searching for a pretty long time.
I am in New Delhi, and my other friends are in Mumbai. I have given below my name and email address. I hope to hear from you. Best regards, Janet
I would like to know more about dementia care givers, whether they are facing problems in giving care to these patients
I’m glad to know you want to know more about this. Feel free to read this blog, which shares a lot of information on the topic. If you have specific queries in addition to what you find here, please contact me.
Hi Swapna Mam. My name is samuel, Hyderabad. My mother, aged about 80 years, is suffering from the memory loss. Her speech and recognition abilities are sinking. Please advise.
Hi Samuel, so sorry to hear about this. I suggest you first try to get advice from a neurologist to understand the nature of her problem and what medical or other intervention may help. Any senior neurologist in a good, reliable hospital should be able to help, but I also have a full-fledged site on dementia care in India which includes city-wise resources in cities, including Hyderabad.
I suggest that you try contacting ARDSI Hyderabad (contact details on my page here: http://dementia-care-notes.in/resources/city-wise/dementia-hyderabad/) for diagnosis and advice.
In case your mother is diagnosed with some irreversible form of dementia, please do note that the role of medication is limited, and you will need to understand much more about how it impacts her and how care can be given, because the role of the caregiving is crucial in the well-being of someone with dementia. If you want to understand more about dementia and care, look around my site http://dementia-care-notes.in , which has several detailed pages on various aspects of these, all designed for caregivers in India…(note: this is not a medical site)
Regards,
Swapna