Last week the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) travelled to Doncaster for UK Dementia Congress 2019 which was held at the racecourse.
The event was opened with Professor Dawn Brooker introducing two of our TAnDem PhD students, Ruby Swift and Karen Gray, who talked about their work. They were followed by a relatively intense debate around the role of ‘environmental lies’ in care homes (e.g. fake bus stops, murals).
Day two saw a wide range of topics being covered by the various presentations and workshops, including an interactive session run by Nicola Jacobson-Wright and Mary Bruce about psychomotor therapy, the principles of which are incorporated into the Meeting Centre model.
Presentations were also given by Professor Tracey Williamson on ‘Inclusive approach to developing dementia-friendly television’ and Isabelle Latham and Nicola Jacobson-Wright on ‘Transforming advanced dementia care – Namaste Care Intervention UK findings’. The final parallel sessions of the day included a symposium focusing on ADS, ‘Celebrating ten years of research, education and innovation in dementia care: What next?’ The symposium included The Hennell Award being awarded to Dr Clementinah Rooke for the work she’s done to raise awareness of dementia during a tour of her home country, Zimbabwe. Congratulations!
Following the symposium the celebrations continued at the ADS stand with cake and balloons – to be fair, we never need much of an excuse to have cake!
Those who made the early bird sessions on the final day were able to find out more about the Dementia Carers Count (DCC) team, including our own Professor Tracey Williamson, and the carer’s courses that DCC deliver.
A second ADS symposium focused on ‘Namaste Care: evaluation and implementation,’ where we were joined by staff members from two care homes who actually delivered Namaste Care during the project. Thank you for being part of it and for sharing your experiences. At the same time as the symposium, Sarah Waller was chairing the session on ‘Dementia care in acute hospitals’. In the final round of parallel sessions Jennifer Bray had to get her running shoes on with two presentations in two different rooms, one on ‘Dementia Dwelling Grants – supporting people to live at home’ and the other with Professor Tracey Williamson on ‘Building knowledge and resilience for family carers of people with dementia’.
In addition, we had two posters on display from Thomas Morton about SCI-Dem and Dr Shirley Evans (with Aelwyn Williams from the Centre for Innovative Ageing) about Meeting Centres.
Thanks to everyone we talked to at our stand across the congress, especially for your interest in our online Post Graduate Certificate which Gina Dutton was able to provide further information about – we hope to (virtually) see some of you in the future.
We can’t write about UK Dementia Congress without mentioning the National Dementia Care Awards which followed it, especially as Professor Dawn Brooker won the Lifetime Achievement in Dementia Care 2019 Award. We’re all very proud!
So UK Dementia Congress is over for another year and we had a great time. Thanks for having us, and see you again next year.
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