Am I the only to have noticed that we now have a society in which failure is frequently well rewarded?
Politicians who screw up are rewarded with honours galore. They are given knighthoods or peerages in the UK. In the US they are awarded with bank directorships galore. And in all countries they find themselves much in demand as public speakers – commanding $100,000 an hour or more. And then there are the books in which, for a few million dollars, they rewrite their careers and rewarded for their perfidy.
Public servants are another group who never pay for their mistakes. Although they have may have misspent billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, public servants are never punished. If anything happens it will be a promotion – possibly to a nice job in a quango where they can earn huge sums for doing next to nothing.
Company bosses are rewarded for their incompetence with bonuses. If they wreck their company, destroy jobs and damage shareholder value the bonus scheme will be rewritten so that they can still be given a million or two in bonus payments.
The philosophy of rewarding failure is destroying our civilisation.
Dementia Myths
13TH APRIL 2023
Dementia is now said to be the commonest cause of death among the elderly. This is nonsense. The commonest causes of death among the elderly are a) untreated pneumonia b) starvation and dehydration because food and water have been withheld.
Here are some more facts about dementia – taken from my book The Dementia Myth. ‘The diagnosis, treatment and reporting of dementia is a massive and previously unrecognised scandal. The staggering fact is that most cases of dementia could probably be cured in a week or two – maybe a little longer with some patients. Anyone who says otherwise is either woefully misinformed or a drug company mouthpiece.
Around the world there are estimated to be around 50 million people suffering from dementia – though this figure is probably on the low side. One half of all the patients admitted to nursing homes are said to be suffering from dementia of one sort or another.
Millions of patients who have been diagnosed with dementia are being looked after by their families. Many family members have had to abandon their jobs and their normal lives in order to find the necessary time to provide care for their loved ones. Millions more patients have been dumped in hospitals and nursing homes where they sit or lie, waiting to die.
No one knows how many millions of as yet undiagnosed individuals are struggling to cope with dementia, either alone or with the help of relatives, friends and neighbours.
The commonest diagnosis for all these patients is Alzheimer’s disease. It is widely reputed that two thirds of patients with dementia are suffering from Alzheimer’s. Indeed, Alzheimer’s has in many countries become the default diagnosis. If a patient has dementia then they will be assumed to be suffering from Alzheimer’s and little or no effort will be made to find any other diagnosis. The drug companies, the big charities, the media and even some doctors seem to promote the view that the words `dementia’ and `Alzheimer’s’ are pretty well interchangeable.
The prognosis for those diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is a gloomy one for, despite many promises, there is still no cure for this disease, nor is there any sign of a cure on the horizon. Drug companies have produced a number of prescription only drugs recommended for use with Alzheimer patients and alternative health care practitioners produce new remedies on an almost daily basis.
Despite all the promotion given to Alzheimer’s disease, there is however, clear evidence that many so-called dementia sufferers who have been diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease have been misdiagnosed. They are suffering from something quite different and could be cured – often completely and frequently within weeks or even days.
This short book is intended simply to draw attention to this scandal and to provide pointers for those who feel that a loved one may have been misdiagnosed. My aim is not to provide a comprehensive guide to any of the diseases which cause dementia but, rather, to offer direction for those who might otherwise be led into a fateful diagnosis when other more hopeful possibilities might exist.
Some patients who have dementia will, of course, have Alzheimer’s disease, and will be incurable. But if just one patient can be rescued from a faulty diagnosis and returned to an active, productive life then writing this book will have been well worthwhile.’
Taken from Dementia Myth by Vernon Coleman, now available as a paperback and an eBook on Amazon. Dementia Myth explains why and how dementia is misdiagnosed – and describes the three diseases (vitamin B12 deficiency, normal pressure hydrocephalus and the overprescribing of tranquillisers) which are most commonly mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease.
Join us in the Village of Bilbury
14TH APRIL 2023
For over 30 years I have been writing about the trials and tribulations of a young doctor working in the village of Bilbury in the English county of Devon. There are now 15 books in the series and, in spirit at least, the doc never grows any older. All 15 books are available from amazon.
The village is the sort of traditional rural idyll where every home has a log fire and no one bothers to lock their doors. And there is, of course, a pub (‘The Duck and Puddle’) which is the friendliest of hostelries and which serves the best food and drink in the county if not in the entire West of England.
Bilbury Chronicles, the first in the series, describes the adventures (and misadventures) of a young doctor who enters general practice as an assistant to an elderly and rather eccentric doctor in North Devon. Like all the books it is set in the 1970s.
When he arrives in Bilbury, a small village on the edge of Exmoor and just a stone’s throw from the sea, the young doctor doesn’t realise how much he has to learn. But he soon finds the true extent of his ignorance when he meets his patients.
There’s Anne Thwaites, who gives birth to her first baby in a field, Thumper Robinson who knows a few tricks that aren’t in any textbooks and Mike Trickle, a TV quiz show host who causes great excitement when he buys a house in the village. (Mike Trickle also appears in the book and film Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War.)
Then there is the elderly Dr Brownlow, the young doctor’s employer, who lives in a house that looks like a castle, drives an old Rolls Royce and patches his stethoscope with a bicycle inner tube repair kit; Frank the inebriate landlord of the ‘Duck and Puddle’ and Peter who runs the village shop, drives the local taxi, delivers the mail and works as the local undertaker.
There’s Miss Johnson, the receptionist with a look that can curdle milk; Mrs Wilson, the buxom district nurse and Len her husband who is the local policeman with an embarrassing secret.
The first three books in the Bilbury series have now been published, unabridged, as audio books. The publisher is American but the books are, quite properly, read by a professional English voice artist - Rory Barnett. The audio version of Bilbury Chronicles lasts eight hours and 24 minutes.
The books received fantastic newspaper and magazine reviews when they came out and the series has been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. Several of the books have been serialised and enjoyed by millions of magazine readers.
These are dark, difficult and often depressing times. I hope you’ll visit the village of Bilbury and its wonderful inhabitants. It’s where Antoinette and I live - it is our escape from a too often cruel and frightening world.