Early Onset Dementia

Consensus provides bespoke support for early onset dementia.   As a relatively rare condition, many people with early onset dementia suffer from misdiagnosis, or are inappropriately placed in services for older people due to a lack of tailored provision.

However, at Consensus our investment in assessments, referrals, new developments and specialist staff training has allowed us to create tailored learning disability and early onset dementia services that provide the highest standards of support.

The fundamental aim of these services is ensuring that people maintain their skills and quality of life. To do this we enable the people we support to take an active role in all aspects of their daily lives, whether it is cooking and cleaning or doing their own laundry. Although these may sound like everyday tasks, for people with early onset dementia, they provide an opportunity to maintain control of their lives and avoid losing skills.

Working with the University of Stirling’s world renowned Dementia Centre, we have designed services that are tailored to support different aspects of the condition. Every bedroom has a memory box outside, which contains personal objects that enable people to identify their rooms and navigate themselves round the service. Rooms also include individual phone lines to allow people to call their families and contact support staff.

All bedrooms are en-suite so that people can continue to wash themselves and maintain their privacy. As people suffering from dementia often find their mirrors distressing we have also minimised the use of reflective surfaces. To help support people at night, all of the bedrooms are also fitted with automatic lighting sensors and we encourage people to bring personal items of furniture to make the space their own.

As with all our services we know how important it is for people to enjoy a broad range of stimulating activities. As well as arts and crafts where people can have fun being creative, services have daily activities such as singing and dancing, and activities rooms where people can play pool, or enjoy musical instruments. To help stimulate other senses, Consensus has also created sensory gardens within services and many of our homes have pets.

Services also work to support people to become and remain a part of the local community. Whether it is visiting their local church or social club or a regular visit to a shop, we know how important it is to be an active participant in community life.

One of the individuals who has benefited from this kind of specialist support is Marian. To read here story please click here.

To download a PDF on Early Onset Dementia, please click the download button below.