Harriet explores the themes of independence and community as she walks the West Highland Way.

There’s lots to consider when it comes to independence and a dementia diagnosis, and it’s not just about the independence of the person living with dementia. Their families also face challenges around their independence too.

She’s joined by two Grahams in this episode - first Graham Horner from Macs Adventure who discusses how self-guided trips empower individuals and then Graham Galloway from Meeting Centres Scotland which helps people adjust to the changes that come with a dementia diagnosis.

If you like what we are doing and want to support the Dementia Adventure Support Fund please donate

Dementia Adventure has been at the forefront of providing fully supported, small group short breaks for people living with dementia and their carers for 15 years. Our supported breaks offer more than just respite; they provide meaningful, purpose-driven experiences that significantly enhance the quality of life for both people living with dementia and their caregivers. 

The D Tour podcast is proudly sponsored by Macs Adventure

Macs Adventure specialise in self guided walking and cycling holidays for independent, active people who don't want to be part of the crowd or restricted by set dates and schedules.

You can listen to Harriet's playlist on Spotify. Each week she's adding songs to match her mood on her epic walk!

So it's this very wet, dripping green, misty environment. And then sometimes I just catch this eerie sound of the stags rutting on the other side of the loch. So we'll see, I'm keeping my ears out for that sound. It's a very strange, eerie sound, a bit like the grouse were. They exaggerated or emphasised the loneliness and the emptiness of the moor?

And this is the same kind of sound.

It emphasises the emptiness of those high hills on the other side, which hadn't been forested as far as I can see, through these trees on this side, but are sort of high moorland covered in that lovely brown, orange bracken. So, yeah, it's a kind of eerie, mystical sound. I would like to see the animals who are emitting it.

Welcome to the D Tour, a special podcast series where I share my incredible journey, walking 900 miles from Land's End to John O' Groats to raise funds for Dementia Adventure.

I'm Harriet Thomas and you can follow my adventures by visiting dtour.uk That's D T O U R dot UK.

Macs Adventure specialise in self guided walking and cycling holidays for independent, active people who don't want to be part of the crowd or restricted by set dates and schedules. They encourage you to go at your own pace whilst they support you with all of the routes and logistics for a worry free adventure.

So it's day... It's day 67. Oh, there's a choo choo train. I love trains.

That's the train that goes from Fort William to Glasgow and has really opened up the West Highlands. But, yeah, it's day 67 and I'm on my way to Glencoe.

I started bright and early because it's a 19 miles walk and this part of the adventure is very generously being sponsored by Macs Adventure.

So this means that not only do I have baggage transfer and not only do I have their very handy app, which tells me all about my route, including a nice easy to follow map with a nice arrow, big fat arrow on it, telling me where I am. So that's all really super handy.

And also they organise my accommodation, which is amazing, because actually it really does take quite a long time to organise accommodation. Any of you who've organised sort of holidays where you're hopping from one place to another. Oh, my gosh, the colours.

It's literally, I'm walking through an orange landscape. Like, the grasses are orange, burnt orange. What do they call that? Umber? Burnt orange grasses, burnt orange trees. You know, everything is these sort of. The colors are going from sort of burnt orange to brown in all sort of different shades, if you can imagine that.

And then huge stands of Caledonian pine that are the deepest green, you know, forest green. So there's fantastic colors. It's quite cloudy.

Oh, yeah. I was going to say, sorry, I was distracted by the gorgeous environment.

I've got to be in Glencoe by 5.30 to get the transfer bus to the accommodation, because the accommodation isn't at the end point. So that's why I've started early.

So I say it's quite a long walk, 19 miles, and a little bit of climbing too, so I don't want to have to rush, you know, so started nice and early, literally as light was coming, which is my favorite time of day, and I always feel so alive in the mornings. It's just such a good time of day. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to this walk.

As I continue this journey along the West Highland way, I've been reflecting a lot on what independence really means, not just for me, but for those of us caring for someone with dementia. It's something that can feel hard to hold on to, but yet it's so important.

And that's why I'm especially grateful for the support of Macs Adventure on this part of the walk, taking care of all the logistics, from accommodation to carrying my bags and allowing me to focus on the experience and to be fully present.

I wanted to dive deeper into what independence can mean when it comes to adventure and travel.

Graham Horner, Chief Growth Officer at Macs Adventure, talks about how their self guided trips make adventure more accessible, empowering people to explore on their own terms. Have a listen.

Adventure travel historically has been on a group basis and often a small group basis. So you travel with other people and you don't know who they are and you sign up for a group trip.

And what we're doing is offering adventure travel, self guided. Which means you do it yourself, but we enable you to do it. And I think that's the difference, because I think it can be quite intimidating and difficult to organise these things yourself.

You've got to organise your accommodations, you've got to know your route. You ideally don't want to be lugging a big bag around.

So there's quite a lot of specialism in organising these trips, but what we do is take that away from you and enable you to concentrate on the walking and actually be in the moment and not have to worry about everything else.

Our founder, Neil Lapping, he is from Scotland, and he was actually running tours in Scotland himself, taking groups up Ben Nevis.

But he saw this trend in tourism with people on buses, and lots of tourists of Scotland would be disgorged from tour buses. They'd take their photos and get on the bus again and go up to the next site. And this provoked a reaction in him, he was like, this is not the best way to see this country. You know, the best way to see this country is out there on foot, on the trails. That's where you really get immersed in the landscapes. You meet the people.

And so he started organising trips that were self guided and providing all the materials and the information and, say, the logistics to make them happen. And over the last 21 years, that portfolio of trips, which started in Scotland, has grown, and we now have over 500 all around the world.

I think we all discovered how to walk and the joy of walking during lockdowns because there wasn't too much else to do. But that has almost unleashed a whole new market of people who've suddenly gone, wow, walking is really powerful and it's a really mindful thing to do, so why don't I do it on my vacation as well? So I think, you know, you've definitely benefited from that realisation that was brought on by the lockdowns and Covid.

So as a start point, we have our classic routes, which is like the iconic walks of the world, like you Coast to Coast and your Tour de Mont Blanc. And these are routes that are quite familiar and people want to do.

And then you've got what we call our slower adventures. This is where you take things a bit easier, where it's not so much about the walking, it's about the whole experience.

There'll be time to go to a vineyard, there'll be time to sit on the beach or whatever along your walk. So a slower paced adventure.

When I explain what I do and, you know, the sort of my job and what our trips are, when you say, you know, we transport your luggage, that's almost like the penny drop moment. It's like, what? You know, I don't have to carry everything on my back, and it's like, no, no, you just carry a little day sack and your luggage is in your room when you arrive there in the evening. Oh, my God, that sounds amazing. And I think this is the thing, people don't realise it exists you know, it's like, I think in their head, it's like it's a backpacking experience. You know, you see photos of people walking up mountains with huge backpacks and they've got all their sleeping bag and the tent dangling from their backpack, and it's like, no, no, no. It doesn't have to be like that.

The difference now with us all having smartphones is phenomenal. Before, it'd be route notes, bits of paper, maps and all the rest of it. With the app, you basically follow a blue dot. So we have all the navigation plotted in and your day by day route all in one app on your phone.

And you don't need to be able to read a map. You just need to be able to follow a blue dot on your phone. It's like Macs in your pocket and we're there. And you can contact us via the app as well if there is anything. It's actually developing as well, the app. We're just about to do a new feature where people will be able to share comments in the app as well.

So in real time, they'll be able to say, you know, I just had an amazing cake at this cafe, or, watch out here, there's been a diversion on this route. You know, do this. And so this is brilliant.

It's when our customers are participating with us as well, I think, because they're right out there live, you know, they have the most up to date information, and so. And they want to share a lot of the time with others.

The feedback we get from customers and the stories we get back, they're not really about, oh, I went on this walk to get fit, or I went on this walk, you know, to be more active. You know, it's all about how they felt.

It's all about how the trip made them feel, how they connected in a different way with who they're walking with or the place they were, you know, walking through. And so, yeah, I would say I think it is more mental and physical.

I mean, there's been a lot of talk about slow travel. This is a trend, rather than taking lots of quick trips, take fewer slower trips, take more time to notice. Allow yourself to be distracted. I mean, what a joy it is to be distracted. How often are we allowed to be distracted?

We had a story actually posted on our Facebook community by an American guest actually. He was walking the Tour de Mont Blanc, which goes, well around Mont Blanc, through France and Italy. But for him, it was a really amazing journey because, an emotional journey, because he brought his father's ashes back to Italy because his father was an Italian immigrant to America, so he really wanted to bring them, bring them back. So, yeah, he scattered them halfway through his walk. And it was a really meaningful moment. For him it was closure on his father's death, and it was just something he really wanted to do. So that one made us well up a bit when we read that one.

But it was lovely that he, you know, and the fact that he felt able to share it publicly on the community was lovely.

We had another, an amazing guest of ours, customer who has done about two or three trips with us now. He got into walking because he lost his wife. And on her deathbed, she said, you will walk. Because it was his passion. He made a promise to her that he would go out and walk, and he has done that, and he's gone out and walked solo.

He always books his trip solo with us. He's done all the big routes, like the Tour de Mont Blanc, the West Highland way with us.

He's going off to Japan, and he shares all his experiences on Facebook and is the loveliest, most positive person that I think I have ever met. And for him, you know, this is something he's doing for her, and it's helping him get through her loss.

And so, you know, I think, you know, so these are a couple of examples of stories where these trips are more than just trips. They're not just holidays. You know, they are. They are.

They are things that are, you know, really helping people to reconcile things in their life and create super, you know, super positive experiences for them.

We believe that actually the power is in the mental benefit and how it makes you feel.

So we're really keen to associate with organisations that are promoting that and Dementia Adventure believe the same. They do believe that getting people out walking can have huge benefits for their mental health. So we felt we were really aligned with it.

And it was really just lovely that Harriet would be walking on our best selling routes as well. So it just felt drawn to it. It was like, well, if anyone's going to help you, we can help you. Yeah, it's been. It's been a real privilege to get involved and support her on her journey, and it's lovely to see that she's. She's enjoying herself and enjoying the whole Macs experience while she's doing the West Highland Way and the Great Glen Way with us.

So the Scottish breakfasts are absolutely the best because they have these things called tattie scones. So potato scones. So they are thin triangles of a potato batter.

I imagine the batter is very similar to something my mum used to make, which she used to call potato cakes, but she made hers round. And they were thicker, more like potato farls. But these are thin, thin triangles of the potato batter, and they look like they're deep fried.

They are so good. They are such a good breakfast, and they are served with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.

So, frankly, picture me sitting in the Coire Glas Guest House opposite this most amazing picture window that looked out over beautiful beech and oak woodland, all yellow, you know, different shades of yellows and pale greens and browns in this autumn season. And then beyond them, uh, the mountains, just with their tops in the clouds.

I mean, literally, the best breakfast in the world and the best view in the world. I thought my morning could not be more complete.

And then Simon and Morvin came out from the kitchen, both of them in their striped chefs aprons, and donated 40 pounds to Dementia Adventure. And I must say, I was nearly crying.

I was. I was like, what can be better than this? You know, this amazing walk, this amazing scenery, this amazing food, and this amazing generosity.

It's literally, this is a dream come true. So I'm setting off today, fueled physically, spiritually, and emotionally from my lovely, lovely stay at the Coire Glas Guest House.

Being an independent walker is such a freeing experience. It gives you the chance to set your own pace, to really connect with the landscapes, and to take a journey that is entirely yours.

But at the same time, one of the unexpected joys of this trip has been the people I've met along the way. It's funny how even on a solo adventure, you can still find a sense of community.

One of those people is my friend Frans, who I met while walking the West Highland Way. Over breakfast, he was telling me that this is his first multi day hike, which made me curious.

I wanted to know why he decided to spend his time on such a big adventure.

He's out here walking alone, but like so many of us, he's discovered that this kind of independence doesn't mean isolation.

It means making new friends and sharing those special moments with people you meet along the way. So I asked him to share a bit about his journey and what inspired him to take on this challenge. Here's what Frans had to say.

But during COVID as everything was closed and you were not allowed to go anywhere, I decided to start walking and making longer walks. And I enjoyed it and really made me feel good.

And as I've always been in love with Scotland for the past 40 years, I read about the West Highland Way, and it sounded really good. So I put it on my bucket list. Like, I've put the Camino on my bucket list now because of you. So that's why I decided to do the West Highland way.

I've been looking forward to this since the moment I decided to do it. And of course, I've prepared myself by making long walks. Although in the Netherlands, it's quite difficult to walk in the mountains because we haven't got any.

But I walked in the dunes, along the sea, which is also hard because you're walking in large tracks, large parts, in loose sand.

I know Scotland for such a long time, but I wrote to someone, I've fallen in love with Scotland again.

Yesterday we were walking in October on a sunny day, short sleeves. It felt like summer, but we also had rain. We didn't have really cold days, but we had rainy days.

And those are things that you experience much more when you're walking and also meeting people. Meeting some people you meet on several days, some people you just meet for a couple of seconds.

Sometimes you walk with people for one or two hours and then you split up again. And that's fun too, to meet people from all over the world that are doing this hike and that, do you say bonding? that creates, yes, a bond.

And it feels like a community of kind, happy people who do something they enjoy very much.

So it turns out this episode is a bit of a two for one special. Two Grahams in one show. First, we heard from Graham Horner about how Macs adventure supports independent walkers like me.

And now we're going to dive into another kind of support, this time for people living with dementia, guided by none other than Graham Galloway. There's a lot happening in Scotland when it comes to dementia care, and Graham is right at the heart of it.

He's the CEO of Meeting Centres Scotland, which is all about helping people adjust to the changes that come with a dementia diagnosis. Meeting centres aren't just about the person living with dementia, but also their families, offering them a sense of community, support and hope.

And what's really special, each centre is unique, just like the individuals it supports.

Graham explains how these grassroots hubs create joyful environments, helping people with dementia and their families cope with the emotional, social and practical changes that they face.

I think if you walk into any meeting centre, they're all very different, because the development process for meeting centres is very much a grassroots one.

It's a bottom up approach, so they're all following the same model, but how it's implemented varies enormously but even with that kind of variety in the way meeting centres operate, the minute you walk into one, you just get it, you get the vibe, you get the atmosphere. They're just joyful places to be. So what they look like is basically a social club, a social club where families that are affected by dementia.

And when I say that, I'm not just talking about the individual with dementia, it's about the families, the care partners as well.

The psychological framework that underpins the model is called adjusting to change.

And it's about preparing both the person with dementia and their families for the social, the emotional and the practical changes that a dementia diagnosis brings.

So for practical changes, thinking about the kind of physical disabilities that come with dementia, everybody's aware that memory loss is a big thing with dementia, but there's obviously all sorts of other things that come with a dementia diagnosis.

So if we can help people to understand these changes that are happening and develop strategies, it will hopefully help them deal with the illness as it progresses.

And then the emotional changes, particularly around that point of diagnosis, when people are really knocked for six, you know, they're really flattened by this diagnosis. And that, again, goes for the family members as much as the person with dementia.

So the peer support that happens within meeting centres really helps people get back on that emotional, even keel.

And that's really tied up then, with that social adjustment that happens there.

A lot of people, when they're diagnosed, their world shrinks down, they lose friends. Families stopped coming around again because of all those kind of societal anxieties there are around dementia and around how to deal with it.

So a new peer support network of friends builds up from the meeting centre, and it really gives people the opportunity to build some autonomy and some agency back into their life again.

There are lots of really exciting things happening in Scotland in the world of dementia, and meeting centres are attached to them and in varying different degrees.

A really exciting one that's coming up within the next month or so, is the second Dementia Arts festival, which is happening in November in Edinburgh. So this is following on from the first one that happened in Inverness last year.

And this is an art festival where all of the art has been created by people living with dementia.

There's going to be theatre, music, dance, everything you can imagine for a full week, and will include a fantastic event, which is "Dementia the musical". And it tells the story of three of the first real dementia activists in Scotland, James McKillop, Nancy McAdam and Agnes Houston.

And really is building on the incredible work that these three amazing individuals did in and forming things like the Scottish Dementia Working group, which then has led on to the formation of the European Dementia Working group.

So some really, really exciting and innovative things happening in the world of dementia in Scotland just now.

Just a few weeks ago, that Ron Coleman and Willie Gilder, who's another dementia activist, were also involved in.

And this was walking the talk for dementia, a four day walking event in the the northwest of Spain in Galatia, following the pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.

So this was an incredible event that was organised by a young Brazilian man called Fernando Perez, who organised the walk in honour of his grandmother, who had always wanted to make it, but sadly was unable to as she developed dementia in her later years. And Fernando actually came out of university to become full time carer for his grandmother.

And he saw a lot of those kind of societal barriers that I was talking about earlier, that his grandmother faced, particularly around clinical relationships and the imbalance of power that there was there, the horrific diagnosis process that she went through that sadly, we still hear very commonly in the UK of a 15 minutes appointment where at the end you're told you have dementia, there's a leaflet, go and get your affairs in order.

So Fernando has basically made it his lifetime mission to improve life for people with dementia around the world.

So he's an Atlantic Fellow through the Global Brain Health Institute, and through that, he developed walking the talk for dementia in honour of his grandmother, but also to kind of deal with some of these societal changes. And how the walk works is that over the four days, 70 people from 30 different countries all walked together as a group. And this included neuroscientists, biomedical scientists, policymakers, chief execs of large national dementia organisations.

But crucially, it also featured people with dementia and their family members, and walking as a group, all wearing the same purple t shirts, completely leveled the playing field. Everybody there was there as an equal. The conversations that we had had on that walk were absolutely between equals.

And at the end of the walk, of the four days, we had a three day conference, a two day conference, sorry, within Santiago. And a lot of the professionals who were on the walk completely rewrote their talks after the experience that they had.

And a particularly notable one was Martin, a neuroscientist from Brazil, who was, I think, going to talk about blood biomarkers, and instead was inspired by Bill from Australia, who'd spoken the day before at the conference around the walk being the first time he'd ever felt an equal with a clinician when having a conversation.

So Martin completely rewrote his talk and talked about clinical humility and the importance of scientists and clinicians having understanding the position that they have when they're having conversations with people with dementia.

So, really, really inspirational event, and we're now in the early stages of hopefully doing something similar in Scotland within the next couple of years.

Did you recognise those names Nancy McAdam and Agnes Houston? Coming up again in Graham's conversation alongside another inspirational figure, living with dementia, James McKillip.

These three are Scotland's longest serving dementia activists, leading the charge to ensure that people with dementia have a voice in their own lives.

Graham also mentioned Dementia The Musical, a humorous yet poignant production that chronicles the history of Scottish dementia activism, featuring Nancy, Agnes and James in pivotal roles. You may remember Nancy and Agnes from earlier episodes.

Neil Mapes, the founder of Dementia Adventure, highlighted them in episode seven with their iconic mojitos.

These remarkable women have been central to our discussions around dementia, demonstrating that life can still be filled with joy, connection and activity, even in the face of a diagnosis. It's inspiring to see Nancy and Agnes highlighted again, as they truly embody the message that there is still so much to live for despite dementia.

I've really enjoyed how this podcast connects so many people and weaves their stories together. Not only does Graham reconnect us to Nancy and Agnes, but he also links us to the Camino walk.

Fiona Petit, CEO at Dementia Adventure, participated in this journey a few weeks ago and I personally enjoyed the Camino trail before embarking on this adventure. Plus Macs adventure offers tours of the Camino de Santiago, a long distance pilgrimage route steeped in legendary history and sacred roots.

Everything is coming together beautifully.

Take a moment to listen to Fiona and Fernando Agozilo Perez, the organiser of Walking The Talk For Dementia, founded by Global Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health.

This innovative programme, which took place in May in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, brought together approximately 70 participants from nearly 30 different nations. They embarked on a transformative journey, walking 40 kilometres of the world's most renowned pilgrimage route.

I had the most amazing grandmother ever, and she was my best friend my entire life. And my grandma was living with Alzheimer's disease for six years and she would love to have seen the world and to have traveled.

And she was watching documentaries and reading books about different countries, different cultures. She never made it. She never had opportunity that I have today to travel and to see what was out there.

One thing that I really wanted to do for her was to walk this journey, the Camino. The Camino walk in Spain, Santiago de Compostela.

We are putting everyone in the same step to walk shoulder by shoulder.

So there's no titles, no one is a doctor, no one is a professor. Everyone is just whoever they are and they were born being and the person that they would love to die being that person till the end.

So that's the purpose of the walk and the talk, to put everyone in the same level.

As you say you thought it was going to be a one time only, here you are! You brought how many people together this year?

80.

And this includes Asia. We have people coming from India, from Thailand. We have people from, from Nigeria, Mauritius, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa.

In Latin America, we have Peru, Brazil. We have Argentina, and then Mexico, United States. So it's a global event, definitely.

And that's what we want the walk and the talk to be about, sharing different cultures and bringing different perspectives to the table so people can just broaden their understanding and dementia and try to collaborate to figure out solutions for the main challenges we are living in our own communities. And definitely Nigeria is living challenges that I'm not living in Brazil.

Regarding the same topic, dementia, I love when people say that when you see one case of dementia, you see only one case of dementia. And everything starts with one of the same, which is the diagnosis. And then it brings us to very diverse pathways and... And the same challenges they have in Nigeria and South Africa, in Peru, they are not the challenges we have in Brazil, United States or Germany.

So bringing everyone together to discuss that, and it's not bringing the frustration, because when I go to these big conferences, for example, the AEIC, it's beautiful to see the Netherlands pitching the solutions they found for dimension their communities, or Germany or France or the United States. But then how should we adopt that in Brazil or Peru if we don't have the same resources?

I truly believe that we can bring loads of good projects and grants and other collaborations to the table and to help future generations to live with it and to deal with the main issues. We have the modern issues that dementia is bringing to the table, if that Makes sense.

You know, Fernando really captures that spirit of connection on the Camino, doesn't he? It's all about walking together and sharing experiences, which ties right into the theme of independence that we're exploring today.

If you don't know Doctor Raja, he's an old age psychiatrist who's been such an amazing support on my journey.

He really emphasises how crucial it is for people living with dementia to maintain their sense of identity and purpose, just like Fernando mentioned, when everybody walks together, it levels the playing field and fosters a sense of community.

Doctor Raja echoes this by saying that keeping daily routines and social interactions alive helps slow down the progression of dementia. But even more importantly, it allows people to hold on to their dignity and self esteem. Encouraging independence means that family members can still be themselves, not just carers.

It's about empowering those living with dementia to maintain their autonomy, whether it's on the Camino or in their everyday lives. So at the heart of it, it's all those meaningful connections and the support we give each other that help everyone to thrive.

Whether it's physical activity, activities of daily living, mental activity or socialising, all of them add up towards making sure that the illness progress, especially if we're talking about Alzheimer's type of dementia, then the illness tends to progress a bit slower.

Which is very important because it just gives them that extended amount of time to make all those important decisions that they need to make for the family to have good interaction with them, and also for, for the person with dementia and their family to continue forming those very important memories, personal memories that they would cherish even at a later point of time.

So for all of those reasons, it's very important to encourage people with dementia to maintain their independent living and to manage themselves as much as possible.

One of the things that's very important to realise is that family members should retain their relationship based roles.

So husband, wife, son, daughter, grandchildren, rather than always having to be in the carer role, in which case they don't have that qualitative interaction.

But it also means that the person with dementia is being deprived of their own independent living skills because there's someone doing things for them or always asking them to do things or not to do things. So it then takes away their sense of self esteem, dignity, identity in many ways.

So it's very important for family members to realise that encouraging person with dementia with adaptive changes, understanding their limitations, but still encouraging that sense of independence, fosters good relationship, healthy relationship, and also gives them that degree of respite from being in the carer role.

I think it has to come down to knowing the person with dementia very well, what works for them, and trying to think of things that you could prioritise to say, well, these are very important things for my family member with dementia, and doing those things will make them feel more satisfied as to having done something during the course of the day, and then focusing on those few important things, trying to find out what adaptive measures could be done to try and support the person to achieve that task. It could be very simple, like having a walk in shower.

And that might mean that the person is still able to carry out their personal hygiene without much support. And that gives them that sense of independence and dignity.

Fostering independent living means that people are less frustrated, less agitated, because there isn't anyone constantly asking them to do things or asking them to change things. So it reduces that sense of frustration.

It also increases their self esteem, which gives them that hope and sense of purpose and being useful to themselves, and useful to the family and to the society in a way.

So it enhances their emotional well being, which then means that the likelihood of things like depression or anxiety, which could be part of dementia, would be less likely to happen.

There is a stigma and in sense, a very demoralised way of looking with people, looking at people with dementia and believing that they can't do a lot, which is untrue. They still have a good amount of long term memory, they still have their procedural memory, which is quite intact until later stages of dementia.

And therefore they can do things. They might need a bit of guidance, they might need a bit of simplification of the procedure, but doing that means that their brain is still working.

They are benefiting from that degree of brain activity as such. So that's how it helps the person with dementia, in terms of enhancing their memory, emotion, and their cognitive functioning.

In terms of personalised activity plan, I think that is very important because dementia is very unique to the individual. Although memory problem is a very loosely used umbrella term, the symptoms are very unique to the individual.

The things that people tend to forget and how it has impact on their life, their relationship is very individualised in that sense.

Therefore, I think one of the important things to do is to actually have a better understanding of who the person is, what works for them, what keeps them happy, what prevents them from becoming distressed, what can be done to make them more independent and to bring those kind of very important moments in life where they feel very valued and purposeful, I think is very important.

I always tell to people with dementia and their family member that, you know, maybe they wouldn't be able to take a Times crossword and finish it in 15 minutes as they used to do it in the past, but they would still be able to do the crossword puzzle. They could just do it for five minutes, take a break, come back to it later on. And you work chunks during the day.

And in many ways, it actually fills the day. It doesn't have to be a rushed activity. No one is timing them or it's something to prove. It's just to be able to enjoy doing it without the frustration of pressure in terms of having to do it in any particular length of time. So, yeah, so they should continue. They should be encouraged to continue doing things that they normally enjoy, whether it's listening to music or doing puzzles or going out for a walk, but trying to understand that it's not a time constrained exercise anymore, but you're doing it to derive pleasure from doing something that you're familiar with.

Even when we had the cricket days, thanks to Dementia Adventure, what was very evident is that people with dementia just loved talking about things that they knew about and had experienced themselves.

So it wasn't that they were actively participating in the actual match that was happening in front of their eyes, but having that moment where they could sit back and talk about things that they're fairly confident in, drawn from their long term memory, just gave them that rich sense of usefulness and purposefulness to the day.

So it is understanding the person, what works for them and also drawing on their long term memory, which makes them feel better emotionally, cognitively and, and just builds that relationship much better.

It will always be a balance between safety and encouraging independence, but there shouldn't be a presumption of bad things happening, which then makes us very, very cautious to the extent that it starts impacting on the liberty and independence of the person with dementia.

I can't believe how close I am to the end of my journey to John O'Groats, which is exciting and a bit bittersweet. There are only a few songs left to choose from my playlist and each one feels extra special now.

This week I've chosen the Skye Boat song.

The reason I've chosen this song is because when I was in Inverness, walking through the town centre, there was a busker, he was a violinist, and he was playing the Skye boat song.

Now, I know I haven't been to the Isle of Skye on this trip, but listening to that musician play the Skye boat song really took me back to when I was standing high up on the hill and looking down on beautiful Loch Ness, and it really seemed as if the loch was being expressed in that beautiful melody. The second song I'd like to choose is a completely different one. It's.

I don't feel like dancing by the Scissor Sisters. And the reason I've chosen this song is that I sing it in my head or sometimes out loud when I'm feeling tired.

I just feel that this song, it's got such a great rhythm and it's great for walking. It's great for energising me when I'm feeling tired and when my legs are feeling tired. So this is for all of those tired moments when I'm walking.

This is to energise me and give me vitality. And I hope it does the same for you.

You can check out my playlist on the D Tour website at dtour.uk That's D T O U R dot UK.

And also tune in to Music For Dementia Radio at www.m4dradio.com it's been such a joy to share this music with you all.

So now that I've planned my trip back, I'm kind of counting down the days. Not counting down the days because I'm looking forward to going home. Although, of course, I love being at home, looking forward to seeing my cat and my friends and my neighbours and my family. But that's just what your mind does, isn't it? It starts thinking about the future and what you need to get ready for the future and, like, what's going to happen when I get back. How am I going to feel? What am I going to do? All these sorts of thoughts have started to intrude.

So I'm making a conscious effort to put all those thoughts to one side and just be in the moment, surrender to the moment, be present to where I am, which is walking along the shores of Loch Lochy.

And like Loch Lomond, loch Lochy is this beautiful slate grey expanse of calm water, bounded by these hills, getting mistier and mistier in the, in the. In the background. It's quite a lot of low cloud today. Perfect time to be low down and walking down a loch.

And I've walked through the most incredible beech woods. I was trying to capture the wood, but it's very, very difficult to take photographs because the trees are so tall.

But that was like a sort of Hansel and Gretel like fairy tale forest, you know, really gorgeous. And I could hear in the background the sound of stags rutting. I've heard it a couple of times. It sounds not unlike kind of cows mooing or making their cow sounds, but it's a little bit different. I haven't actually seen the stags, I've just heard them.

So because this is such a beautiful walk, it's quite easy for me to be, as I say, focused in on the present and not worrying or even thinking too much about the fact that soon this journey is over, except just to say on day 72, this is quite the most fabulous thing I think I've ever done. It's been so incredible to be walking pretty much every day and to see the country and to explore the country on foot.

Not just the sights, but the sounds, the smells. Like when I go through the pine woods, you know, you've got this lovely pine smell.

There's so many times I've gone through damp bog or damp woods and I've just got this beautiful, earthy smell. It's just been a really, really life enhancing journey.

And of course, the people I've met, you know, some wonderful people on the way and walked with some fabulous people that have really brought so much light and like an extra dimension to the walk. And I've been lucky enough that friends and family and colleagues from Dementia Adventure have come up to walk with me too.

So just to say that in these last 19 days of my trip, 18 days of my trip, my main goal is to really be present to every second of magic that I'm walking through. This is what I'll be doing, what my mindset will be for the next nearly three weeks till I finish this trip.

So that's it from me this week. A huge thank you to Macs Adventure for their incredible support.

Not just on the West Highland way, but for believing in this journey and sponsoring the podcast. Their backing has helped spread the word about Dementia Adventure and what's truly possible after a dementia diagnosis. Focusing on what you can do rather than what you can't.

Each step of this journey has reinforced how vital it is to maintain our sense of self and independence while embracing community.

Next week, I'll be diving into the very heart of Dementia Adventure. I'll be staying with the founders, Neil Mapes, Lucy Harding in their home in Nairn.

We'll discuss life in a rural community and the isolation that can come with dementia or any condition that makes it hard to connect with those around us. So see you next week.

The D Tour podcast is proudly sponsored by Macs Adventure.

Macs Adventure specialise in self guided walking and cycling holidays for independent, active people who don't want to be part of the crowd or restricted by set dates and schedules. They encourage you to go at your own pace whilst they support you with. All of the routes and logistics for. A worry free adventure.