Dementia Live® Experience
To elevate care, compassion and empathy for those living with dementia, we must first gain an understanding of how the individual with dementia feels. The Dementia Live® program provides this unique “inside-out” perspective by allowing participants to experience for themselves, the day to day challenges of their world.
What is Dementia Live®
Dementia Live® is an experience that immerses participants into what life might be like living with cognitive impairment and sensory change. Utilizing specialized gear that simulates dementia specific changes that include altered eyesight, hearing and tactile sensation, this safe experience is a powerful and effective tool to strengthen care partner's understanding of and empathy for their residents.
Immediately following the the Live Experience will be the Empowerment Phase of Dementia Live®. Participants are given the time, space and guided discussion to consider, understand and learn from their Experience.
Empowerment discussions are essential for transforming into new and better dementia care-partnering practices.
Sensory Changes Associated with Aging and Dementia
Our ability to take in and respond to incoming sensory data changes over time. What we see, hear, touch and feel, smell, and taste changes with age even without the effects of dementia. Simply put, we take in and process differently as we age.
Vision:
Vision is a vital sense that changes greatly during the course of dementia. The individual's field of vision becomes increasingly narrow as the disease progresses. This affects not only their personal space but also their productive space.
Hearing:
Hearing sounds and understanding those sounds are two different abilities. A person with dementia may hear and recognize the tone, pitch and volume of a persons' words, but they process the words more slowly in which they may come across as garbled, distorted and meaningless. Increasing the volume of your voice or background noise can make it worse.
Tactile:
Tactile processing includes stimulation associated with touching and stimulation associated with being touched. The more compromised the brain, the more compromised the sensory processing and the less able a person is able to "feel".
The Dementia Live® experience provides participants with a real-life simulation of these and other sensory changes that are associated with dementia.
Come join us for a Dementia Live® Experience
Gain a first hand understanding of the anxiety, isolation, frustration, confusion and more. Dementia Live® Experience will uniquely walk participants through an empowering simulation for caregivers and provide tools to improve communication, care processes, and the environment.
When:
TBD
Please plan on a maximum of two hours for the full experience.
Where:
Ontario Tech University
2000 Simcoe Street North,
Oshawa, Ontario L1G 0C5
For more information, please contact continuouslearning@uoit.ca
Cost:
$10 per person or $15 for two people
Provided in partnership with
