Keith Day
Keith Day, who likes to be called Cam, lives in Swale with his wife, daughter and son in law. In 2016 Cam was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) at the age of 67. This is a rare form of dementia which is more common below the age of 65. Keith says, on looking back, there were changes to his personality and character before this. Keith had already retired at the point of his diagnosis, but prior to this he had a long career as a Residential Social Worker in a Children’s Home. He has also been a House Husband and worked with CRUSE, as the only male child counsellor. Alongside his work, Keith is a born-again Christian of twenty-seven years and used to preach in Churches up until his stroke, when he experienced word finding difficulties.
Cam has been supporting KMPT in various roles since 2018, having initially engaged in a peer support group. Cam then joined the KMPT Volunteer Bureau, and has since been involved in developing some of KMPT’s leaflets, looking at processes, and he became an ambassador for the Living Well With Dementia courses in Swale. Cam shares his experiences with newly diagnosed people to enable them to see that there is life after receiving a dementia diagnosis.
Cam’s work as a dementia envoy has included spending time with fourth year doctors in training and third year psychology students to enable them to understand more about Dementia. Cam has also attended KMPT interviews as a Panel Member to help ensure that the appropriate professionals are employed for the appropriate roles by the trust.
Cam became a dementia envoy in 2021 and he hopes to continue in championing to reduce stigma and promote understanding of dementia in this role. In addition to his Envoy Role, Cam is an active member of KMPT’s Patient Engagement Council.
Cam is an active member of Pathfinders in Swale, this is a pro-active group consisting of people living with dementia, promoting understanding and working for change to reduce the stigma about dementia. He works remotely with other organisations such as Deep, Three Nations (and is on the Steering Group), Alzheimer’s Society, and Santander and Dementia Voices. Cam was one of the working group for developing the My-Life-My-Goals online resource for people with Dementia which helps to identify strategies to continue living life. Cam is a great advocate and promotor of living as well as you can following a diagnosis of dementia. He works hard to demonstrate how people can help themselves and others to find ways of developing coping strategies.
He says ‘I have Dementia, but I won’t let Dementia have me’.
Cam is involved in a number of other activities relating to living well with dementia, and some of these are highlighted below:
- Working with Age UK to introduce Walking Football – this included finding a premises to hold the activity.
- Working with Age UK to implement a specific young onset dementia support group that mirrored COGS – you just needed to be young at heart, not in years.
- Attending the Houses of Commons to raise the profile of Dementia (during Alzheimer’s Dementia Action Week) where he spoke personally to several MP’s. Jess Phillips later tweeted about meeting Keith. https://www.ukcareweek.com/news/people-affected-dementia-tell-mps-importance-timely-diagnosis
- Working with DEEP (Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Project) to produce Dementia Diaries where people share their experiences.
- Working with Stirling University and Pathfinders to produce podcasts
- Working with the Alzheimer’s society to help de-stigmatize Dementia, such as working with Santander (to help them achieve being the first Dementia Friendly Bank) and going to the House of Commons.
- Working with KMPT’s Patient Engagement Council to ensure that older people’s voices are heard in shaping the services of the future.
