Story

The Healthy Living Club is a small charity working hard and joyfully to improve the wellbeing of people who live with Alzheimer's or any other type of dementia in the London Borough of Lambeth.

We also try and promote a more positive image of people with dementia nationally, partly through making good use of the social media.

Dementia is one of the most common causes of disability among the old. It affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, judgement, behaviour, mobility and continence.

Yet, the Healthy Living Club is a happy place. People with dementia (and some of their carers) from all over Lambeth gather weekly in the communal areas of a local extra-care scheme in Stockwell to participate, together with the residents, in activities that are both healthy and fun.

Our Wednesday meetings typically attract more than 40 people, and a smaller group meets for two and half hours on Monday mornings, to meet the needs of those who are less able to express themselves as part of a large group.

Many of the Club's elderly members say that the club is their "lifeline" as it provides them with their only opportunity to socialise all week.

An independent study, using tools of measurement developed by the New Economic Foundation found that the 30K we spent in a year produced 1/2m of "social value".

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