Member Article

Virtual Dementia Tour visits the North East for the first time

Leading North East dementia charity, Dementia Care, played host to a Virtual Dementia Tour bus.

The mobile Virtual Dementia Tour bus, operated by Training 2 Care, launched in the UK at the beginning of 2016, having originated in America, and has been travelling to care homes around the country to provide dementia training for professional carers and families of people with dementia.

The bus was in the North East for the first time, at Dementia Care’s Brunswick Village centre, between Monday 13th and Friday 17th March.

The Virtual Dementia Tour is designed to provide a unique insight into what having dementia feels like. Participants spend time in a room on the bus, which is kitted out with furniture and items from around the home, in order to simulate an everyday home setting. In the simulated environment, they are exposed to a range of stimuli, sensory deprivation and sensory overload, to mimic the sensations a person with dementia feels day-to-day. The home-like setup shows how even the most commonplace of things can seem overwhelming to someone with dementia.

It has been scientifically proven to provide carers with a unique insight into what having dementia feels like, in order to help their understanding of how to better care for people with dementia. It shows the participants how much their own actions can influence the response and behaviour of people with dementia.

Staff from all services in Dementia Care experienced this Virtual Tour during the week that it was at Dementia Care’s centre. The charity also opened the training up to staff from other local charities and people involved in dementia care.

In the past few decades’ dementia, and the need for caring for dementia, has becoming increasingly common across the world. While there are no known treatments for it, a number of organisations, including Dementia Care, are working to raise awareness and help care for people with dementia. In 2016 it was said that around 850,000 people were living with dementia in the UK and that number increases each day.

The visit of the Virtual Dementia Tour bus to Dementia Care was made partly possible through money raised during a week of fundraising at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle in November. As part of an ongoing partnership, ten sixth form pupils experienced the tour, giving young people an educational, first-hand experience of dementia.

Carol Brown, Head of Care at Dementia Care, said: “the principle purpose of the Virtual Dementia Tour bus coming to Dementia Care is to help our own staff gain an insight into what having dementia feels like. Once they have gained this understanding it can then help them to care better for people with dementia. We also invited other professional carers who look after people with dementia to attend.

It’s an incredible and hard-hitting way to gain an insight into dementia and to understand it better. We are so pleased to host it here and grateful for the fantastic fundraising we received from pupils and staff at RGS, without which, this would not have gone ahead. We are so pleased that their sixth formers could join us to experience the Virtual Tour and gain a first-hand experience and understanding of dementia“.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellie Murdoch .