In Practice: Working Towards Dementia Friendly Societies

Abstract

Dementia friendly communities and opportunities are expanding, and can promote independent living for those diagnosed with dementiaDementia is a national health priority in the UK1 and a public health priority worldwide.2 This has arisen after considerable efforts from clinicians and consumer/campaigning organizations, such as the UK Alzheimer Society, Alzheimer Europe and Alzheimer Disease International. This has resulted in a policy context driving forward agendas supporting earlier diagnosis of dementia, improvements in post-diagnostic support, and better standards of care in hospitals, care homes and the community. In the UK the Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia3 has set clear expectations that not only should more funding be dedicated to research seeking to find evidence on how to better support people with dementia and their families, but also to improving current care practices. One particular development worthy of note is the concept of 'Dementia Friendly Communities', reported on in a subsequent progress report.4 Dementia friendly is a notion designed to enable and empower communities to work towards innovation in their particular context or neighbourhood to provide a high quality of life for those living with dementia. What dementia friendly neighbourhoods might look like has been explored, including promoting access to outdoor spaces,5 enabling people to remain living in their communities independently for longer. This is a key question in the dementia field: how to create a society that promotes independent living and high quality support in the community? This is important as simply increasing the time period that people can live at home would help to address the growing concern of the future economic burden of crisis care and long stay care placements.6However it is also important to consider how the current policy drivers can help bring about lasting societal change to address the long standing marginalization and social exclusion7 many people with dementia still experience today. What can we do to promote a dementia friendly society? Much of this is common sense, and what we can do to make things dementia friendly are also things that we can do to promote general health and wellbeing. Two areas attracting increasing attention relate to access to a range of activities in accessible environments. For example, ensuring that people with dementia have access to local leisure, recreation and tourism opportunities is important. Promoting opportunities to engage with the arts, whether this is to visit galleries, museums, the theatre or to directly get involved and have groups for people with dementia to paint, sculpture, sing, dance and act are all important. …