Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation

Every one of these beautiful Vesak lanterns were crafted by our clients, filling our activity center with so much more than just light. Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful Vesak!

ඩිමෙන්ෂියාව වර්ධනය වීමේ තත්ත්වයට බලපාන අවදානම් සහිත සාධක කිහිපයක් තිබේ. අපේ වයස හෝ පවුල් ඉතිහාසය සම්බන්ධයෙන් අපට කිසිවක් කළ නොහැකිය. කෙසේ වූවද, සෞඛ්‍ය සම්පන්න බවින් යුත් ආහාර වේලක් ලබා ගැනීම, දිනපතා ව්‍යායාම කිරීම, අධික රුධිර පීඩනය සහ දියවැඩියාව වළක්වා ගැනීම සහ කළමනාකරණය කිරීම, මත්පැන් සහ දුම් පානය කිරීමේ පුරුදු අවම කර ගැනීම මෙන්ම අත්‍යවශ්‍ය විටමින් ලබා ගැනීම ඩිමෙන්ෂියාව වැළඳීම වැළැක්වීමට හෝ ප්‍රමාද කිරීමට උපකාරී වේ.

ඩිමෙන්ෂියා පිළිබඳ වැඩි විස්තර සඳහා අපගේ වෙබ්අඩවිය වෙත පිවිසෙන්න www.alzlanka.org

A sincere thank you to Richardson Projects for your generous support in helping us share our message across our community as we celebrate our 25th year. See our gantries on Galle Road, Duplication Road, Horton Place and Dharmapala Mawatha (near Town Hall).

අපි සියල්ලන්ම වයසට යන විට ඩිමෙන්‍ෂියාවට ගොදුරු වීමේ අවදානමක් පවතී. අවුරුදු 90ක් ජීවත්වන සෑම තිදෙනෙකුගෙන් එක් අයකු මෙම රෝගයට ගොදුරු විය හැකිය.

කෙසේ නමුත්, ඩිමෙන්‍ෂියාව, වයසට යාම නිසා අනිවාර්‍යයෙන් ඇතිවන්නක් නොවේ.

ඩිමෙන්‍ෂියා රෝග ලක්‍ෂණ නොමැතිව බොහෝ දෙනා මෙම වයස් සීමා ව ඉක්මවා ජීවත් වෙති. ඇතැම් විට අවුරුදු 40 සහ 50 අතර මැදිවියේ සිටින පුද්ගලයන්ටද ඩිමෙන්‍ෂියාව ඇති විය හැකිය.

මේ ගැන වැඩි විස්තර දැනගන්න අපගේ www.alzlanka.org වෙත පිවිසෙන්න.

Home - Alz Lanka LAF is committed to supporting individuals with cognitive impairment and dementia, raising awareness, and providing community-based care.

ඔබට සමීප වැඩිහිටියකුගේ මෑත මතකය බෝහෝ විට අඩුබව දැනෙනවාද?
සුළු කර්තව්‍යන් කරගන්න අපහසු බවක් පෙන්නවාද?

මෙය වයසට යාම පමණක් නොවියා හැකිය. ඩිමෙන්‍ෂියාව විය හැකියි

මේ ගැන වැඩි විස්තර දැනගන්න අපගේ www.alzlanka.org වෙත පිවිසෙන්න.

Home - Alz Lanka LAF is committed to supporting individuals with cognitive impairment and dementia, raising awareness, and providing community-based care.

Dementia is not a normal part of ageing. It is a syndrome that affects memory, thinking, behaviour, and the ability to perform everyday activities, and it impacts millions of people and their families worldwide.

Over 55 million people are living with dementia globally, with nearly 10 million new cases every year. The majority of people with dementia remain undiagnosed and unsupported.

Awareness is the first step toward change. Learn more about dementia, its causes, symptoms, and what we can do as a society to support those in need of our support.

Read the full article: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia

Dementia WHO fact sheet on dementia providing key facts and information on signs and symptoms, rates, risk factors, social and economic impacts, human rights, WHO response.

The Activity Centre of the Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation will be closed from 6th to 20th April for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year holidays.

We take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to our wonderful volunteers, whose unwavering commitment has enabled us to keep the Activity Centre functioning during these difficult times.

Thank you. 🙏🌺

One Heart. One Voice. One unforgettable evening.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the Lionel Wendt Theatre on 22nd March for our special choral concert in celebration of 25 years of Lanka Alzheimer's Foundation.

A heartfelt thank you to the Soul Sounds Academy Community Choir for filling the night with music, love, and meaning.

To our Director Soundarie David-Rodrigo, Artistic Director Jerome L. De Silva, our generous sponsors, and every single person who came, your support means a lot to us.

A Carer's Story - Keeping My Mother Walking!

19 February 2026 marked five years since my mother fell and was diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. She was eighty-seven then, she is ninety-two now, but she still walks and is continent.

Every person’s experience of Alzheimer’s disease is different and care needs to be calibrated accordingly; each family must find its own balance between what is sustainable and what preserves dignity. In my mother’s case, we were fortunate that the disease did not affect her verbal skills, which remain intact: she can still converse, although she remembers less and less about what she knew.

As her neurologist explained, she is atypical in her ability to speak, but the disease is weakening her executive function. That means she is finding it increasingly hard to remember how to do things, especially how to sequence small actions that make up bigger ones. Like how to bend with her hips back and sit on a chair so that she can sit up and eat without spilling food down her front.

Sometimes she loses balance because her brain forgets to keep her upright while she walks to sit on the bed. So, she needs repeated verbal cueing and constant supervision as her brain no longer remembers how to keep her safe.

When she was first diagnosed with the illness, I decided to look after her myself and bring in only as much help as was essential. I am an economist, and I often see even life situations in terms of economic theory. My mother always had a robust constitution and was likely to live long. Hence, as I saw it, I needed to keep expenses low for as long as possible to save resources for emergencies and for when she needed more care. Hiring a live-in carer and handing my mother’s care over to her, as was suggested at that time, would have made my mother more dependent far earlier. This would have been a recipe for rapid deterioration and exponential cost escalation, as it was likely to lengthen the time that she may have to spend in the final stages of the illness.

For the last four years, my mother has been visiting the Alzheimer’s Activity Centre three days a week. There, routines are external, expectations are simple, social interaction is brief and bounded, and novelty stimulates engagement. Staff, volunteers, and students all describe my mother as patient, sociable, and quietly charming. She talks readily with everyone, from interns to medical and speech therapy students, thrives in the structured interaction, and enjoys the attention. I believe that the stimulation and care that the Centre provides has helped sustain her functionality over the years.

Her time at the Centre has also enabled me to continue caring and working. I have managed an increasingly complex care roster that has evolved as she needed more help, and I have had less energy to give it to her. Right now, I have one daytime carer coming in three days a week, and another carer who does three nights and one day each week. I look after my mother between handovers, during the remaining three nights, and of course, when a carer is unable to come. At such times, the other carer and I juggle to balance the wobbling schedule. At least three times a year, my mother stays around two to four weeks in respite
Care so that I can have a break.

The advantage in my having looked after my mother myself during the early stages of the illness, and my continuing to be directly involved, is that I have been able to anticipate problems and take preventive action. For example, I knew that letting her hold the arms of a chair to get up would eventually weaken her glutes and leg muscles to the extent that she wouldn’t be able to walk. So, I devised a system where she had to stretch out her arms and I held her hands high, pulling on them lightly so that she was forced to get to her feet using her leg muscles, which remain toned. I insisted that she walk barefoot at home so that the muscles in her feet wouldn’t atrophy, and made her claw her toes on the floor while seated so that her arches wouldn’t collapse. When she found it difficult to figure out how she should place her feet while coming down the stairs, I made her turn towards the banisters, hold it with both hands and step sideways, while I held her shoulder with one hand, the banisters with the other and walked down the same way. I never help her to sit up in bed but make her do it herself so that her core remains strong. And I frequently startle her into tightening her pelvic floor muscles by sneaking up behind her and saying loudly, “suck it up”, so that she wouldn’t become incontinent.

A regular routine and structure to her day, including an afternoon nap and roughly two hours of seated yoga or watching travel videos on Youtube in the evening, keeps her grounded. It also enables both my mother and her carers to have a respite from each other at regular intervals every day.

It has not been easy. Home is where fatigue builds up, demands are continuous, and responsibility cannot be deferred. At home, the caregiver needs to enforce structure and routine while managing long-term behavioural dynamics, while the care receiver resists and negotiates to escape effort and direction.

This is particularly true of my mother; she was oppositional before dementia and, even now, blind to the possibility of deteriorating from a state of perfection. It is tragic, no less ironic, that she who always resisted being told what to do, cannot have a bath, clean her teeth or brush her hair otherwise. So, if she still walks, and is still continent, it is likely because she has been dragged, resisting all the way, to a relatively dignified old age. Even so, it is becoming increasingly hard to hold up the boulder of care as I tire and age myself. I know that the disease will take its own course but the economist in me still hangs on.

Thank you Ramani Gunatilaka, for sharing this beautiful and strong story with us all. 💜