Innovations in Dementia CIC

Innovative projects - hearing the voice of people with dementia

We have work with various organisations to consult with people with dementia about plans and services.

For example
Camden Council asked all people who live in Camden to give their views on proposals about the future development of Camden care homes. The Council wanted to ensure that people with dementia currently living in their care homes could be involved in the consultation process.

We work with Pictures to Share to ensure the images included in their books were engaging and interesting for people with dementia.

Find out more about our consultancy work

Videos by people with dementia

We worked with a professional film-maker and people with dementia to produce four inspirational films.

View the films

Email: steve@innovationsindementia.org.uk. Telephone: 01392 420076
Innovations in Dementia CIC, PO Box 616, Exeter, EX1 9JB

April 2010

Penelope gives an ‘inspirational’ talk in London

Penelope is a ThinkTank volunteer with Innovations in Dementia. She has dementia and she also cared for her mother.

Penelope has helped us with our project about an information resource of equipment.

She spoke at the National Telecare Conference in London. She answered questions from the audience as part of a workshop run by Stephen Wey.
Stephen is an occupational therapist. He also does research at York St John’s University.

The workshop was about how important it is to include people with dementia in decisions about equipment that might help them.
The audience included equipment makers and occupational therapists.
Penelope talked about:

How important it is to listen to the views of people with dementia.
How difficult it was for her to get information
How important dementia training is.

And most importantly Penelope stressed that:
“It is vital that we change attitudes towards people with dementia.”

Penelope certainly changed the attitudes of the conference delegates who heard her speak.
One member of the audience told us that Penelope had made her look ‘beyond the disease and to see the person’.
Another person in the audience told Penelope that her talk had been
inspirational.

November 2009

“Our House” – a new project about involving people with dementia in care home settings

Innovations in Dementia is looking for funding to start a new project.

Approximately one third of people with dementia live in a care home. In the day to day life of a care home it is rare for residents with dementia to be involved in decisions that shape the life of the care home.

We want to work with a few care homes to find ways that people with
dementia can be involved in decision making.

Care home residents will be supported to say what they want to be involved in and how they want to be involved. Some things that people with dementia living in care homes have said they might like to be involved in include:

planning meals for the care home
what to spend ‘activity budgets’ on
designing gardens, bringing the outside world into the care home
promoting the home to future residents.

Valuing the contribution of people with dementia

At Innovations in Dementia, we want people with dementia to be at the heart of everything we do.

We are drawing up policies around the ways we involve people with dementia in our work. A key issue is how we value the contribution that people make.

Although we are a social enterprise, we charge for our services. We believe that people with dementia should be rewarded for any work they undertake with us.

We are asking people for their views round incentives and payments for people with dementia.

Peter Ashley has Lewy Body dementia. Peter is an associate of Innovations in Dementia.

He says:
"If we don’t offer payment to people with dementia we are saying that we do not value the voice of people with dementia. I always say that you can have as many professionals in a room as you want but the real expert is the person with the condition. Payment is, at the very least, a gesture of thanks. If we don’t thank people for the work they do we will not encourage more people to get involved and society as a whole will be less well off."

Contact us

Innovations in Dementia CIC, PO Box 616, Exeter, EX1 9JB
Telephone 01392 420076

Registered as a community interest company No. 06046815.
Find out more about community interest companies