Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am going to be trekking the Great Wall of China for up to 10 hours a day over 10 days in October 2011 to raise vital funds for the Alzheimer's Society. I need to raise a minimum of £3000 - so it's going to be quite a challenge! And as most of you know, i'm hardly the hiking type... So it's going to be tough!

There are about 750,000 people in the UK with dementia. Dementia is progressive, which means the symptoms will gradually get worse. It cannot be cured, although The Alzheimer's Society are constantly researching & continuing to develop drugs.

I have a particular interest in the Society & the disease through working with elderly patients - a high percentage of whom are living with the disease, and through the personal experience of my Gran dying with the disease last year. I have seen first hand the devastating effects the disease can have on both the person living with it and their family. In my Gran's case she was always a very proud, independent, caring woman and had given all of her life to her family. She became increasingly forgetful, confused and frightened due to a family history of the disease. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's & Vascular Dementia early in 2009. Within months of her diagnosis she was barely recogniseable. From a strong independent woman, she became almost childlike and had to depend on her Husband for all of her care. She had difficulty swallowing, communicating and walking, her behaviour became increasingly uncharacteristic & she was unable to recognise members of her family. Within 6 months she was hospitalised and sadly died from the disease.

Dementia is a disease which can rob people of their lives & identity. It can affect people in all different ways, such as; increased confusion, wandering, becoming lost, unable to differentiate between day & night, forgetfulness, difficulty with perception, hallucinations, difficulties in eating & swallowing, considerable weight loss, incontinence, loss of speech, restlessness, increased aggression & distress, uncharacteristically selfish and unfeeling, decreased mobility, unable to identify objects, iniability to understand what is going on around them, repeat words, puzzling behaviour, repetitive movements ... and many more!

Before my experience with the disease I generally associated it with forgetful old people...but the disease is much more devastating than that. The disease can take over and it is sometimes hard to see the person behind it - people can often be impatient towards the person with the disease, ignore them, get angry with them for their bizarre behaviour & ignore their wishes & rights. Which is often due to a lack of knowledge of the disease - hopefully by doing this I can raise awareness and vital funds for the Society.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Thank you very much,

Sarah xxx