Dementia Support

Our group support sessions provide the opportunity for people to meet in a small group, with others with similar experiences. The sessions offer support within a homely environment and help keep people connected to their community.  The groups can also provide appointment assistance, support in mental health and wellbeing and other community links.  Groups are available at our Dollar Park base and the Dundas Resource Centre in Grangemouth.

The group sessions are held multiple times a week, bringing together people living with dementia to provide peer support. Small groups of around 5 people are joined by our Support Workers to chat, take part in activities, and learn together.

Our group sessions are open to people who have a diagnosis of dementia and a referral from Social Work. Evening and weekend support is also available to service users, carers and families.  This will be delivered in small group sessions.  This will be a self-referral service.

We also run a ‘Chill and Chat’ café group each Wednesday which anyone can self-refer to.

Available to anyone with a diagnosis of dementia and a referral from social work, the one-to-one service offers weekly visits from a support worker to help you manage everyday tasks.

The one-to-one service can help you by:

• Supporting you to remain involved in the community where you live, such as going shopping, out for coffee, or going to visit a friend.
• Helping you to pursue hobbies and interests, or try new ones.
• Providing household support including shopping, preparing meals, taking medication, having a bath, and ‘light’ house work.
• Spending time with you in your home to enable your carer to take on other tasks.
• Offering emotional support to you and your carer.
• Working together with you and your carer to understand dementia and ways of coping.

You can find out more about the services, and read testimonials of people accessing this support, on the Dementia Service webpages.

Running several times a week at various times, our group activities offer the chance to meet others, share stories, hobbies and interests with old and new friends.

Groups are led by those who attend them, which allow you to take part in activities which are of interest to you. Activities and sessions are also available for people with dementia and their carers or family, offering respite time for everyone.

We understand the challenges related to living with dementia or caring for someone with dementia. The groups offer support, time away from everyday worries, and time out to chat with others of shared experience, or on a one to one with our Support Workers.

You can refer yourself using the group referral form – which can be signed off by your GP, nurse, or social worker.

If you are aged under 65 and have been diagnosed with dementia, we have a range of support options and services you may want to use, including:

• Project worker advice: Our full-time project worker can give you, or anyone who cares for you, guidance and support. They can help you and your family understand your condition and identify ways in which you could help each other, such as keeping safe, communicating and creating daily routines.
• Support workers: We can arrange for one of our support workers to spend some time with you each week. They can help you maintain your skills and interests and stay in your job, if possible.
• Group activities (every second Wednesday): This group offers support and advice for people who have a diagnosis of early-onset dementia. The group meets every second Wednesday between 12:00pm and 2:00pm. We can give you lots of information and advice and have our own library with books, tapes and DVDs that you can borrow to understand more about dementia.
• Partners’ group: This group is for partners and carers to get together. We organise activities including art therapy, stress management and relaxation.

For more information about these support options, please contact the Joint Dementia Initiative on jdiadmin@falkirk.gov.uk or 01324 501730

If you, or someone you know, has recently been diagnosed with dementia and you would like to know more about the condition, you can visit the Alzheimer Scotland website for info and support.

Alzheimer Scotland also operate a 24-hour freephone Dementia Helpline on 0808 808 3000. Staffed by trained volunteers, the helpline can help you learn more about:

• Understanding the illness
• How to get help locally
• Maintaining independence
• Financial and legal matters
• Rights and entitlements
• Coping with behaviour
• Community care
• Long-stay care
• Anything else to do with dementia

You may also wish to take part in the Herbert Protocol scheme, a national programme which encourages carers, family and friends to provide and put together useful information, which can then be used in the event of a vulnerable person going missing.

Families of a person with the condition are asked to download the Herbert Protocol form and provide information such as places of importance to them, often visited places, health issues and places they have been found in the past if reported missing.

Following its introduction in Scotland, the Hebert Protocol has been used many times to trace missing people with dementia and return them home. It is another example of how emergency and care services are working together to keep those with dementia safe.