Alzheimer Scotland: “Exhibitor, sponsorship and promotion options”

Tickets are now on sale for this Alzheimer Scotland Conference:

In terms of “dementia awareness” I have recently offered my personal view on the current Alzheimer Scotland “campaign” which encourages Scotland to have  “difficult conversations”. Dementia can occur in any age from middle life onward but proportionally these “difficult conversations” will significantly involve Scotland’s elders.

Below, taken from the Alzheimer Scotland promotion, is the Chief Executive Officer of Alzheimer Scotland raising awareness of sponsorship opportunities associated with “Dementia Awareness week”:

If you click on the screenshot below – taken from Alzheimer Scotland’s conference promotion – you will find “Exhibitor, Sponsorship and Promotion options”: 

This is what the 2015 Alzheimer Scotland conference offers sponsors:

In an entirely different way to Alzheimer Scotland, Dr Margaret McCartney is not afraid of raising “difficult conversations”. Here is a link to Dr McCartney who recently appeared on BBC Radio 4 with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. The First Minister has read Dr McCartney’s published books.  Dr McCartney sent me her first book:

In Chapter 10 of “The Patient Paradox” Dr McCartney considers “Charities and favourite diseases”. Here are a few passages that  have given me courage to question a big charity that I hold dear:

“As a medical student and then junior doctor, I had a happily innocent view on healthcare charities. Some wanted to speak or send us information about ‘their’ illness or disease.” p159

The uprising of ‘awareness’
“Healthcare  charities have positioned themselves as the advocates of patients and their families. They have taken a lead role not just in political campaigning but also in ‘awareness’.

“What harm could this do? How, possibly, could one argue that ignorance is better than ‘awareness’?” p166

“Ostensibly well-meaning campaigns have gone woefully under-examined for their side-effects. It is an enormous collective blind spot” p166

Does awareness work?
“. . . unless you have good evidence – unless you can say that you have decent proof – you have no idea if you are doing more harm than good.” p167

The following are speakers at this Alzheimer Scotland Conference: