Peer-to-Peer Resources

This resource was researched and written by the Scottish Dementia Alumni, a group of people who have lived with dementia for several years. This volume provides information to help people with dementia confidently cope when things unexpectedly change. The group set out to research which urgent support a local authority or healthcare service should provide and where people will be able to access this. They hope that this booklet will help services better support people living with dementia, as well as build people’s resilience to cope better with unexpected events.

On the 31st August 2021, LCT held an online conference 'Community & Dementia: Creating Better Lives in Greater Glasgow and Clyde’. They opened with a song by James McKillop, a dementia activist diagnosed in 1999. He has worked alongside dementia organisations, including LCT, for many years, offering much-valued advice and guidance. Through a peer-to-peer grant, James collaborated with musician Gus Harrower to create this song: ‘I Will Always Be Here For You.’ It’s performed by Gus, with lyrics by James, and it reminisces about how James felt when his baby daughter was born, and watching her grow up.

This resource was written and researched by the Scottish Dementia Alumni, a group of people who have been living with different diagnoses of dementia for over ten years. They are experienced campaigners who have actively fought for the rights of people living with dementia for over a decade. The Alumni Group received grants from the Life Changes Trust and the DEEP Network which enabled them to produce this booklet and the accompanying video.

Acorn Shed Music is an arts organisation established by Pauline Walmsley and Carol Beckwith in East Dunbartonshire. They set out to find ways to use group song-writing to explore difficult conversations and in 2019, created a CD called 'This Rain'. Carol and Pauline were then awarded a second peer-to-peer resource grant to produce a toolkit, to help other unpaid carers who wanted to explore song-writing as a way of expressing their emotional journey through dementia.

STAND (Striving Towards A New Day), are a group of people living with dementia and their families and friends, based in Fife. They created a film for Dementia Activism Week 2021, with a peer-to-peer resources grant. The film tells the story of what it's like to be diagnosed with young onset dementia and talks about participants' journey to activism - taking control of their own lives and helping to influence decisions and policies that will improve life for them and for others living with dementia.

Alexa and Me is a peer-to-peer resource by Ron Coleman, a dementia activist who lives on the Isle of Lewis. 'Alexa and Me' guides anyone with dementia who is not familiar with Alexa through the journey of using Alexa to empower and support their lives. It’s a practical workbook that individuals can use to help with involving technology in their day to day lives in a positive way. Ron also wrote a a play ‘Alexa and Me', which has been performed as a radio play and on stage as 'Caught In a Moment of Time.'

Dementia and Sensory Challenges is a booklet produced by Agnes Houston, who lives with Alzheimer's. Agnes was frustrated when professionals did not recognise that dementia is more than memory loss and that misconnections in the brain can also lead to misinterpretation of sensory data going into the brain. For example, some people with dementia find their sense of taste completely changes and so reject certain types of food. The Sensory Challenges booklet has made carers, professionals and others sit up and take note of what people with dementia are saying. It has influenced the re-writing of training and guidance for professionals in a number of organisations. To date, it has been translated into Czech, Welsh, Chinese, French and Japanese and it has also been distributed in Australia, Canada, Jersey, Guernsey, Hungary, Belgium, Spain and Slovenia.

This resource was written by James McKillop, a person who lives with dementia, who wanted to share his experience of giving up driving because he thought it might help other people with dementia who have to do the same. James talks about what it was like when he started to notice difficulties with his driving, his dementia diagnosis, how he coped with eventually having to give up driving altogether, and the impact it had on his life. He offers tips and advice on how to move forward with a dementia diagnosis and how it affects driving and mobility, and also provides information on useful resources for drivers who have medical conditions.