Prakash Raj promotes dementia friendly behaviour
Prakash Raj participated in a public forum here on Sunday in an initiative to remove the stigma associated with dementia and promote dementia-friendly behaviour. Speaking at an International Symposium on Dementia, he promised his support to the cause through his roles in cinema and other forms of media.
Nightingales Medical Trust, the organisers of the symposium, is a not-for-profit organisation working for the wellbeing of the elderly. “I was supposed to do a role of an Alzheimer’s patient in a film a few months back, so I visited Nightingales for a few hours… Something close that happened to me was what happened to my mother.
She was not an Alzheimer’s patient but she had a cyst in her brain. Three days after the surgery, she forgot her sister and her son. I shuddered at the thought of my mother forgetting everything. I would get her old school friends to talk to her,” Raj reminisced.
“In trying to reach out to elders, I realised how all of us have some form of dementia because we don’t recognise our parents’ contributions. In this whole process of doing the role I have unlearned what I think I know. This condition should make us more aware of human values and relationships and be thankful of not forgetting things… We should spread more awareness,” he said.
“My guru K Balachander was known for his great films and had a dignified life. He had gone to a function related to a movie in which I had not acted. But instead of talking about the actor, he spoke at length about me and praised me, and people had called him crazy. When I asked him about this, he said he didn’t know anything about it and that he forgot things,” Raj said.
“He confided in me that he was scared to go to public functions and speak there. I realised how society laughs at them and forgets what they were. Later, he would call me and write his speech down because he had things to say but was afraid he’d forget them. There were people waiting for him to make mistakes,” he added. Raj later distributed prizes to winning participants of various contests highlighting innovations in dementia research.