Dementia - Community care training films for formal and informal carers

Dementia Series Review

This film introduces Clive and Pauline Jenkins who live with dementia. Their daughter Kimberley is a former BBC Producer and has collaborated with academic, health and social care partners in Wales to create a series of ten films. Their purpose is to support carers to better understand what dementia looks and feels like. Experienced carers share their insights into observed behaviours and what works and doesn’t work to support those that they look after. Health and social care professionals share their knowledge and offer advice. Academics help us understand what we know about what is going on in the brain and why activities that were once so familiar can become so challenging.

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Understanding Dementia

What is dementia? Welcome to the home of Clive and Pauline struggling to make sense of their world as dementia claims their minds. With humour and pathos, we join this couple in their 80s who agree to share their experiences so that we can better understand how to support them to live as well as possible with dementia. We meet other carers who look after family members living with dementia and the carers working with Clive and Pauline. Their insights are complemented by experts who provide insights into what we are seeing.

what is dementia, lived-experience, retinal-screening technology, information,

Safety

Does it really matter if your dad uses the toilet brush to wash up the dishes? Our team of experts discuss the limits of independent living and when 24/7 care becomes inevitable. We look at strategies for maintaining skills as long as possible.

dementia, lived-experience,safety, danger,

Truth

This film raises a lot of questions about perception, feelings and how they are expressed. Dementia Trainer and Positive Approach to Care certified consultant Nick Johnson gives good advice on how to respond to someone who is upset. Professors Andrea Tales and Jeremy Tree from Swansea University deliver insights into what is going on in the brain and talk about the differences between working memory and those memories laid down many years ago.

dementia, lived-experience, truth, perception,

Anger

It can be quite shocking to see the anger displayed in this film. It is important to remember that this is just one example of how dementia affects a person. Not everyone experiences the same journey and it doesn’t mean it is going to happen to you or your relative or person you care for. However, upsets are not uncommon and this film delivers strategies for dealing with them both from a carer’s point of view and from that of the person living with dementia.

dementia, lived-experience, anger, advice,

Visual Perception

Professor Andrea Tales talks about how people living with dementia face challenges with visual attention. “It’s not just their memory which is declining, it’s their ability to attend and to process information.” You won’t be buying any more check shirts after watching this film.

dementia, lived-experience,visual disturbance, patterns,

Process

This film is a partner film to film 5. It looks at the way that dementia can affect the ability to work things out, like calendars and televisions. The effort involved is considerable and delivers some insight into how tiring and frustrating it must be to try to complete activities of daily living. It acknowledges that carers will feel all those same emotions too as they try to support people to live as well as they can.

dementia, lived-experience,process, advice,

Anxiety

Knowing that someone is experiencing high levels of anxiety is hard. Learning how to help relieve that anxiety or at least understand it can help reduce feelings of guilt. We explore the possibly causes, signs and symptoms as well as strategies to explore to try to keep the person you are caring for as calm as possible.

dementia, lived-experience, anxiety, advice,

Sundowning

A partner film to film 7 about Anxiety. We look in more detail at the time of day when anxiety seems to ramp up and why it might happen. We meet Rose Kasongo who is a very experienced carer who shares her skills with us. We hear what she says and how she says it. This film talks about the importance of meaningful activities, finding ways to keep people occupied and purposeful.

dementia, lived-experience, sun-downing, advice,

Eating & Drinking

This is a big subject! We deal with it through the observed experiences of Clive in particular, as he struggles to interpret what he is seeing on his plate. Dementia expert Teepa Snow joins us from America over Zoom to share her advice and experience of supporting people to participate in this aspect of their care, even in the later stages of their dementia journey. There is more to be said on this subject, but this is what we have experienced and learned over the last year.

dementia, lived-experience, eating, drinking,

What's the Point?

This is a question I have asked myself so many times over the last year. What is the point of working so hard to live well with dementia if each stage of the journey robs the person you are caring for of yet more of their quality of life? I ask our experts the same question and you will be relieved to hear the indignation in their voices at such outrage! It is so true that when you have a good day, a good hour or even a good moment, the rewards are huge. Life lived with dementia is still life. And where there is life (as the saying goes) there is hope. A hug, a smile, a good sleep… all deliver huge rewards to the carer and to the cared for.

dementia, lived-experience,support, quality of life,

A First Experiment

This was our first attempt to explore what it means to live with dementia. A team from the Assistive Technologies Innovation Centre (ATiC) which is part of the University of Wales Trinity St David, bring their retinal screening tech to show my parents. What happens next sets us on our journey to deliver a new way of understanding what it might be like to live with dementia.

dementia, lived-experience,retinal screening, technology,

The Culture of Care - Somali Community

Thinking about the individual: Taff Housing Association and Red Sea House worked with the PocketMedic team to look at life lived with dementia in a residential setting and the importance of person-centered care. This film captures our initial findings in collaboration with the Assistive Technologies Innovation Centre (University of Wales Trinity St David). Our first collaboration led to a series of films to support carers to help people to live well with dementia in a home setting. This first series won a Green Gown Award for Benefitting Society in November 2022. The ambition of the team is to create a second series of films to support carers to provide more person-centred care in residential settings from hospital wards to dementia care homes. This film marks the beginning of this journey.

dementia, lived-experience, somali, Red Sea House,