How Age Scotland is supporting people with dementia through COVID-19

This year’s Dementia Awareness Week has looked a little different from previous weeks. Our dementia-friendly groups haven’t been able to meet and no face-to-face events have been held to mark the occasion.

But our work to support and empower people with dementia and their carers continues. The past three months have been challenging for everyone, but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially devastating for people living with dementia and their carers.

Many have struggled with the change to their regular routines, the closure of face to face group activities as well as acute anxiety and distress about not being able to see family and friends in person.

There are creative practices taking place across Scotland to ensure that people living with dementia stay involved and connected to their communities. Here’s just a handful of the groups who have adapted their roles:

• Our Age Scotland partners at the Eric Liddell Centre in Edinburgh have volunteers delivering lunches to the lunch club regulars at home and have moved their befriending service on to the phone.

• The team at Kirrie Connections in Angus are conducting meetings by Zoom, as well as making food and medication deliveries.

• Dementia Friendly East Lothian are involved in community resilience work to support people needing an extra hand.

• The STAND group in Fife, whose members have young onset dementia, are holding weekly Zoom catch ups with support from the DEEP network.

Other issues affecting people living with dementia have been less positive.

It has been very distressing for people living with dementia to be asked about DNAR without their families or Power of Attorneys present, as has happened in a number of cases. It is something we are now working on to develop guidance on how these anticipatory care conversations should be conducted.

The withdrawal of home care and respite care by some local authorities to divert resources to those deemed at higher risk from COVID-19 has created a deeply concerning situation. People with dementia who live alone have become increasingly isolated. It has also put a great deal of pressure on unpaid carers, including those who live apart and have had to prove that they are not breaching government physical distancing guidelines to provide care.

And official figures show that people with dementia have made up a significant proportion of the excess deaths recorded in Scotland, both COVID related and those that are not directly linked.

There is much to be done to ensure more robust support for people with dementia during this pandemic and beyond.

Meanwhile, our ongoing work to increase understanding of dementia and the work of our Early Stage Dementia Project has continued.

We are running a programme of trainings, via Zoom, to encourage employers, organisations and businesses to promote dementia-inclusive policies.

Our range of guides for people living with dementia and their families are available to download on our website.

The About Dementia Project, hosted by Age Scotland, has also continued meeting through Zoom, and have been working hard to share learning from the lockdown.

We look forward to updating you on more of our work in the coming weeks and months.