WIREDGOV

A loving wife who noticed she could use sign language to better communicate with her husband who was suffering from dementia will help use a Big Lottery Fund grant ensure more people living with the disease and their carers benefit from the technique.

Some 10 projects across Wales are sharing £3,286,489 awarded through the Big Lottery Fund’s People and Places programme (full list at the end of the release).

After 13 years of caring for her husband, Dr Rosie Tope from Cardiff noticed he used a series of hand actions to try to communicate his needs.

Sadly, Roy died last year aged 86 but former nurse Dr Tope remains determined to help others use sign language techniques and is leading a project called Watch My Needs run by Cardiff Bay-based charity ACE Cardiff which has recently secured a Big Lottery Fund grant of £46,590.

It will train people with dementia and their carers from Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan to use sign language. If the idea, which is believed to be the first of its kind, is successful, it could be rolled out across Wales

“I noticed my husband would use a series of hand actions to try and communicate a need he had at a particular moment,” said Dr Tope. “Things like whether he was hungry or thirsty, too hot or too cold, that he was feeling pain, angry, happy or sad or wanting to use the bathroom. Dementia transformed him from a gentle, kind and loving man to someone who was at times aggressive and confrontational when I did not understand what he was trying to say.

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