West Yorkshire Playhouse have just launched a guide for use by other theatres and touring companies on how to adapt shows to be more suitable for audiences who are living with dementia. The guide covers areas such as use of language, making the case for dementia friendly performances, knowing your audience and running creative sessions with audience members. Members of Touchstone's Hamaari Yadein dementia cafe have attended and enjoyed dementia
In the fourth of our posts for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Jane Mackay from Kirklees Advocacy Service talks about the steps her team have made to be supportive of people living with dementia and why it's so important to her. Like most other people, my family has had experience of dementia, my Gran first and then my step-Gran, both within a relatively short space of time a few
In our third blog post for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Amina Ditta talks about her role as a Dementia Champion within one of Touchstone's staff teams. As a Dementia Champion I have been trying to deliver Dementia Awareness sessions to the team at Kirklees. This has proven to be much more challenging that I initially anticipated. Colleagues conduct a variety of role where they are out in the community
In the second of our blog posts for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, a carer talks about his family's experiences from the time of their father's diagnosis with dementia to the time of his death. My father was diagnosed with Dementia/Alzheimer in 2001, we as a family didn't really know what this meant. Our beloved father passed away 5 years ago. Before the diagnosis, both the doctors and us thought dad
In the first of a series of posts from staff and service users for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Touchstone's Arfan Hanif talks about the Dementia Champions group within the organisation. In 2015 Touchstone, as part of its ‘Working to become Dementia Friendly’ accreditation, set up the Dementia Champions group which represents staff from all of our sites. The Champions have started to play a critical role in terms of