During the journey of caring for someone with dementia, there will be joy, spontaneity, and positive interaction, but there will also be darker and challenging times too.
This section is to help you navigate your way through, and actively support those with dementia who may be struggling with the changes that lie ahead. To care for someone with dementia we need to learn to enter their reality and know as much as possible about that person, their background and the things that matter most to them.
As well as having an understanding of what people with dementia might need, it is also important to ensure that they have us as carers to walk alongside them as they try to express themselves, knowing that we accept them for who they are at that moment. Someone with dementia will see the world differently to us and may move through different timezones and worlds which can be daunting for a carer, but this chapter will inspire greater compassion and better person-centred care through understanding the experience of someone with Dementia.
Awareness
Amanda Waring’s powerful short films raise awareness of the impact of moving into a care home for someone with dementia and the disorientation of memory loss and identity to inspire greater empathy and understanding of their reality.
Guidance
Amanda’s masterclass guides participants through meaningful and impact full ways to communicate, validate, and comfort those with dementia. She will share unique hints and tips on creative innovations in positive engagement to create the conditions under which a person with dementia can experience a meaningful quality of life.
Education
The workbook contains exercises around barriers to good care, solutions to common issues and behaviours, supporting sensory challenges, navigating night time issues as well as debate topics, checklists, and self reflective charts to improve good practice.
Learning Outcomes
- To enable Carer’s to enter into the world of people with dementia, who are often withdrawn into their own reality.
- To help create the conditions under which a person with dementia can experience a meaningful quality of life.
- Agree ways to implement key messages in communication and enablement
- Understanding how to support “wellness” in dementia through working with the senses in a therapeutic way.
- Discuss the feelings of anxiety associated with memory loss.
- Acknowledging the importance of meaningful engagement, sensitive communication, relationship and validation.
In this Chapter:
- A Personal Message from Amanda Waring
- Orientation
- An Introduction with Amanda Waring
- Award winning Films
- One-on-one Masterclass with Amanda Waring
- Group Masterclass with Amanda Waring
- Commitment Pledges
- Working Journal
- Debate facilitation with Amanda Waring
- Group and Individual Exercises
- Print outs
- Self-assessment schedule
- Video guidance though out each section
- A thank you from Amanda Waring and a signed Certificate of Completion
Additional Resources
- Podcast
- Audio Poems
- Songs
- Guided Meditations