Awareness course

[Greddy]

I wondered if anyone had attended a dementia friends awareness course. Is it aimed at people who care for someone with dementia or more at making the general public aware of the condition. I care for my mum and have been given a card to fill in to attend one, and am unsure if the course will benefit me.

 

[meme]

Maybe attend simply out of curiosity, to meet others and have a bit of support and some me time..?

 

[Beate]

I don't know this particular course but I attended a CRISP course from the Alzheimer's Society once, and that was very good, though I didn't tell me all that much new.

 

[Marnie63]

Slightly different perhaps, but when mum was formally diagnosed, I was invited to attend an 'Understanding Dementia' course run by the local memory clinic. Initially my thoughts were that no way was I going on this course (at the time I was in denial about mum's condition as it happened so suddenly), but I did go and it was brilliant. It ran for 6 weeks, two hours a week, evenings (a day time session was also offered). They covered a different topic each week and, for once, you were able to get all the info you needed on one course. If anyone is ever invited to such a thing, I recommend going.

 

[Izzy]

I think it is a general awareness raising course. Like others though I think it would be useful to go along and perhaps make connections with other carers.

This is the section from the website which explains the Dementia Friends initiative -

https://www.dementiafriends.org.uk/WEBArticle?page=what-is-a-friend#.WITUdWVsxsM

I've done the online one. Although I had been living with dementia for some years (mum vascular and my husband Alzheimer's) I still found the course interesting.

I also did this course and I see it's running again in 2017. It's an online course and is over a number of weeks. It's more in depth and I found it very helpful.

https://mooc.utas.edu.au/courses/understanding-dementia

 

[Peirre]

I don't know this particular course but I attended a CRISP course from the Alzheimer's Society once, and that was very good, though I didn't tell me all that much new.

I've done both the CRiSP 1 and CRiSP 2 courses fun by my local Alzheimers society.
I too found them invaluable and informative, preparing me to deal with & understand the journey ahead. They each consisted of 5x 2hrs sessions
CRiSP 1: tells you about the diagnosis, legal & financial issues (POA, legal), Guides you in the direction of help from local social and community services & organisations. Information on benefits, and council tax reduction is given. Details of financial thresholds for LA care assistance etc. It basically prepares you as the carer for the road ahead.
CRiSP 2: deals with, and covers the issues in the later stages of the disease, and ultimately the death of the PWD. The course reinforces the information of available help covered in pt1. Due to the hosting of the courses sometimes people do pt2 before pt1, or they find out about the courses when the PWD is in late stages, and therefore pt1 isn't of value to them. Ironically the greatest source of information was the other people attending the courses with me, as they where able to to tell be stuff the presenter was legally able to say.

Contact your local AS branch for availability of these courses

 

[fortune]

I went to one like Marnie63, it was incredibly helpful and I learned a lot.