Manchester – Increasing awareness of dementia in South Asian Communities in Manchester.

What we did

  • Created a toolkit to support mosques and temples to become dementia friendly
  • Co-produced awareness resources
  • Delivered training sessions for South Asian communities to understand the signs and symptoms of dementia.

The resources were co-produced with local voluntary and community sector groups including: Communities for All, Indian Senior Citizens Group, Bangladeshi Women’s Organisation, North Manchester Black Health Forum, Ethnic Health Forum, Together for Dementia and representatives of temples and mosques; Shree Radha Krishna Mandir Temple, Khizra Mosque, Victoria Mosque and Didsbury Mosque.

We worked with the Alzheimer’s Society to deliver some dementia awareness sessions to local groups who support people from South Asian communities.

We developed a set of ‘Through the eyes of dementia’ videos:

  • A short video that can be used in mosques, temples, GP practices and on social media to help people understand some of the signs and symptoms of dementia
  • A longer video for people who’ve been diagnosed with dementia. This video shows real life stories and explains the value of obtaining support from GPs, the Alzheimer’s Society, dementia nurses, social services, mental health trusts and voluntary and community sector organisations

Both videos are available in: English with no subtitles, English subtitles long, English subtitles short, Urdu long, Urdu short, Hindi long, Hindi short, Gujarati long, Gujarati short, Bengali Long, Bengali short, Punjabi long, Punjabi short, BSL long and BSL short.

Leaflets and posters were also developed to:

  • Provide information about the signs and symptoms of dementia, other causes of memory loss, the importance of living a healthy life and managing diabetes and other long term illnesses well and seeking an early diagnosis.
  • Promote awareness of support services available in Manchester and tips for carers.
  • Support places of worships to become dementia friendly.
  • Raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of dementia.

Evaluation results

It’s evident that there’s a need to continue engaging with these communities to provide dementia awareness and questions and answer questions and to promote the materials created to address and reduce the stigma of dementia in South Asian communities. During the dementia awareness sessions a number of people from the South Asian communities expressed an interest in becoming a dementia champion.

Recommendations

  • Follow up on the interest expressed in becoming a dementia champion with online training sessions being offered in partnership with South Asian voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.
  • Link in to existing South Asian communications channels (Asian Sound radio, local TV channels and mosques and temples) to promote awareness of symptoms of dementia and cultural support available.
  • Continue to engage with South Asian communities to provide dementia awareness sessions, question and answer sessions and to promote the materials created
  • Consider how culturally appropriate commissioned dementia services are and how they both understand concerns from the BAME community and respond to their needs
  • Develop a communications plan to support the team to continue to share the resources.

 Links to resources

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