Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, President of the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis, and Pascale Ferralis, Municipal Councilor delegated to dependency issues, will unveil a commemorative plaque on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, at 6 p.m. at the Alzheimer’s Day Care Center, in tribute to Simone Riff, in the presence of her family.
In July 2011, Mrs. Simone Riff, President of France Alzheimer 06 and Vice President of France Alzheimer, passed away. This generous, humane, and committed woman dedicated her life to the fight against dependency and Alzheimer’s disease.
Relentlessly, she proposed innovative approaches to improve the daily lives of patients as well as their caregivers. Always attentive, she became an essential link between the associative world, public authorities, and families.
Simone Riff worked on the implementation of the departmental plan to combat Alzheimer’s disease and then at the CCAS of Nice as an Administrator, as well as on the preparatory work for transferring the “France Alzheimer 06” day care to the future Claude Pompidou Center.
Today, the Mayor of Nice pays tribute to this exceptional woman: the Alzheimer’s Day Care Center of the Communal Social Action Center will henceforth bear the name of Simone Riff.
The Day Care Center
Managed by the Communal Social Action Center, this 186 m2 structure provides medico-psycho-social care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease (or related syndromes) as well as their primary caregivers.
The care is based on the following ethical principles:
Preserve and respect the dignity and identity of the patient;
Combat social, intellectual, and moral isolation;
Maintain the patient’s relationship with their loved ones;
Combat the onset of frailty, which will be assessed;
Ensure the support and training of caregivers.
Families and caregivers can find in this Day Care Center an alternative structure, a bridge allowing them to have some respite while being assured that their relative is temporarily received in a specially designated place.
The alternative structure thus allows:
Providing a place for respite and alleviation of guilt in a “Time Freedom Empathy” space;
Discovering a place for psychological support and information;
Keeping the patient at home longer;
Preventing burnout through this therapeutic support;
Avoiding the isolation of families through psychologist/family discussion meetings;
Allowing the delay of institutionalization and/or preparing the patient and family for it.
