Urging the public to pay more attention to dementia, the private Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau (KWNC) announced yesterday that it will provide free cognitive tests to detect the disease in the elderly.
Addressing an on-campus press conference in Avenida de Venceslau de Morais, KWNC President Florence Van Iat Kio said the college would collaborate with the Dr. Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation and the Macau Alzheimer’s Disease Association (MADA) to provide the test at three elderly centres on a weekly basis.
Van said two of the elderly centres are located in Mong Ha and Toi San respectively, both being run by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (commonly known as Gung Luen), while the other one is located in Fai Chi Kei and run by Caritas Macau.
According to Wikipedia, dementia is a broad category of brain diseases that cause a long term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember, which has a great effect on a person’s daily functioning.
Van also said there are about 4,000 senior citizens in Macau that have been diagnosed with dementia.
(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)
