Save the date - 23 February 2015 - Damaris Gala Screening
Damaris, in partnership with Age UK Southampton is hosting a red carpet Gala Screening on 23rd February at the Southampton Student Union Building.
Damaris is an educational charity that works in partnership with Age UK Southampton and the film industry to provide official resources for community groups which enable people to enrich their lives through the social activity of group visits to the cinema followed by discussion about relevant themes and ideas explored in the films.
Please see flyer for details of the Gala Screening on 23rd February. Damaris invite the campus community to join in the festival atmosphere outside the Students' Union Building as there will be entertainment from the Banghra Society, Bollywood Dance Society and Kandyan and Bharata Dance Society.
Tickets for the red carpet screening will go on sale on 1st February at www.damaris.org/rotary
Damaris- an efficient intervention to prevent dementia
The European Commission highlights the increasing gap between need for long-term care for the ageing population and the supply of such care. Alzheimer Europe recognises that one person out of twenty over the age of 65 currently suffers from Alzheimer's disease (AD), reaching a total of 7 million people in the European Union, with a financial annual cost of €160 billion. With the failure of therapeutic attempts, there is an urgent need to implement innovative strategies for the prevention of dementia. One major feature of abnormal ageing and dementia is the progressive deposition of toxic metabolites in the walls of blood vessels, resulting in plaques that interfere with the efficient blood flow in the brain. Within the interdisciplinary framework of the University of Southampton, Dr Roxana Carare has demonstrated that metabolites are removed normally along very narrow channels embedded in the walls of arteries and this fails in ageing. Prevention of risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure in mid-life offers some protection, but there is also evidence that maintaining an active brain is also beneficial.
Damaris is an educational charity that works in partnership with Age UK Southampton and the film industry to provide official resources for community groups which enable people to enrich their lives through the social activity of group visits to the cinema followed by discussion about relevant themes and ideas explored in the films. The Institute for Life Sciences in the University of Southampton has facilitated the interaction between Damaris and Dr Roxana Carare, resulting in an exciting new pilot project that will investigate whether intervention through engagement in film and satellite discussions afterwards for elderly with very early stage dementia is proving beneficial in slowing down the progress of dementia. If proven beneficial, this could mark the beginning of a prevention non- pharmacological strategy for dementia that can be implemented in Europe within the next 5 years.
