Alzheimer’s Disease International

This week we hand over to Thomas Morton who looks back at his recent experience of the Alzheimer’s Disease International Conference…

ADS goes to the Global Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International

At the start of last month (June) some of us from the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) got to represent our work – and learn about that of others – at the Global Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International, or ADI 2022. It’s not often that this prestigious international conference is held so close to home: This year it was in London, at The Oval (yes, the world famous cricket ground!) and it was the first time it had been held physically since the onset of the global pandemic. Hence it was a real buzz to be in the capital, meeting other researchers face-to-face.

12 resources you should know about

Before Christmas, instead of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ we thought we’d tell everyone about a different resource each day. This was done on both our Twitter (@DementiaStudies) and Facebook (@adsuow) accounts, but in case you missed it or you’re not on social media we’ve pulled it all together here. We also think the resources are worth shouting about, so we make no apology for trying to let everyone know about them!

Resource 1

First off, the CHARM Manual, our newest resource. A FREE interactive, downloadable, step-by-step manual for conducting research in care homes. You can get a copy here.

Resource 2

Our second resource to bring to your attention is the gardens assessment tool ‘Is your garden dementia friendly?’ It’s the latest in the suite of assessment tools and you can download it for free via our website.

SCI-Dem resources – what are they and why should I take a look?

Our SCI-Dem project ended recently, but has three resources which are now available for everyone to use. Although it’s got its own blog site we thought we’d give a quick overview of the resources here to help spread the word as we think they’re worth knowing about.

Can you remind me what SCI-Dem is about?

SCI-Dem stands for ‘Sustainable Community Interventions for people affected by Dementia’. The project carried out a realist review, which in very basic terms means it gathered together a wide range of information about the problems faced by groups that meet regularly to support people affected by dementia. This information was then analysed to work out how it all linked together and identify successful strategies and good practices that help groups to be sustainable in the longer-term.

A blog of blogs

This ADS blog site has been up and running since August 2018, and during that time we’ve shared over 120 blog posts with you. Did you know though that we also have three other related blog sites linking to different work and projects? You can find them in the Blogroll section on the right of the screen, but this week we thought we’d put the spotlight on them for a change. So, what do we have?

This ADS blog site

This is our main blog site, where we share weekly posts on different projects, topics, events, and anything else that we think you might be interested in. In response to the pandemic we added a ‘Useful resources’ page where you can download copies of various information sheets and guides for providing support in different settings. These have proved very popular, so we hope that they have been useful over the past year. We’ve also recently added a ‘Webinars’ page to capture some of the online events that we’ve hosted, including recordings which you can watch back in your own time.

Meeting Centres – National Reference Group Meeting

On a sunny but frosty morning (not that it really matters when you’re in a virtual meeting), 26 of us got together on 26^th November for the fourth National Reference Group, which should have taken place in May but was delayed – like most things – due to Covid.

After an initial welcome and housekeeping by Professor Dawn Brooker, she gave a recap of the National Reference Group meetings so far and what topics have been covered at them. Sustainability of Meeting Centres was the focus of this latest meeting, posing questions around the need for a geographical spread of Meeting Centres and considering which was more important, maximising the quality of support in a smaller group of Meeting Centres, or maximising the number of Meeting Centres.

UK Dementia Congress: Coming together in a virtual space

As academic sponsor, UK Dementia Congress is a big deal for the Association for Dementia Studies, but obviously with the current situation getting large numbers of people together in a conference was not going to happen. The conference therefore moved online and was held virtually from 10^th to 12^th November. Congratulations to the Journal of Dementia Care for organising it all and getting it up and running. This blog provides an overview of the various presentations ADS was part of, but also reflects on some of the differences between a virtual and face-to-face conference.

Sustainable Community Interventions for people affected by Dementia: What works, for whom, and in what circumstances?

On a rather warm July afternoon, Thomas Morton took around 40 of us through the Alzheimer’s Society-funded SCI-Dem project which he has been working on for the past 18 months.

Why was the SCI-Dem project needed?

As Thomas informed us, social isolation, loneliness and stigma are widespread issues for people living with dementia and their families. These factors can have a significant impact on both mental and physical health. Community-based support such as regular groups and activities can play an important part in combating social isolation, maintaining positive self-image, delaying decline and delaying hospitalisation. However, provision can often be fragmented and piecemeal, and many interventions find they are unable to continue due to inconsistent funding.

The focus of the SCI-Dem research was to investigate what can promote or hinder community interventions being sustainable over time. The aim is to report on how to best implement community-based interventions so that they are sustainable, with best practice being shared through tips and recommendations for those in practice and for policy makers, and through creating accessible publications and online materials for people to use.

ADS at UK Dementia Congress

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).

What’s going on? A whistle stop tour of what ADS is doing at the moment

We often have a tendency to be so busy that we never take a step back and take stock of what we’re actually doing, so here’s a quick update summary of the various projects, education, consultancy and other work we’ve currently got on the go. (Apologies to colleagues if I’ve missed anything out!)

In no particular order…

SCI-Dem (research project) – it’s well under way and making good progress in terms of its realist review. The first search has been done and articles are currently being reviewed and included/excluded as appropriate. The SCI-Dem blog is also up and running, providing regular project progress updates.

The three ‘r’s of research – plus wellies!

We’re often asked (ok never, but go with it!) what our research involves, so we thought we’d use this blog to give you a bit of an insight into the sort of research activities we’ve been doing over the past few months.

Reading

A lot of research involves reading, especially if you’re doing a literature review or realist review (see this SCI-Dem blog post to find out more about what this is).

Not only do you have to find the articles, reports, websites etc. that you’re interested in, but you’ve also got to read everything and be able to summarise it in a concise way that still makes sense. No mean feat!