Watch this short film about living with dementia where our lived experience and clinical partners share their perspectives on how we can work together to do things differently.

This film was originally created by members of the Dementia United team alongside our lived experience and clinical partners for the Mayor’s Reform Board in October 2022. We hope it will provide a window into what it’s like to live with dementia or to support someone living with dementia and perhaps address some stigma and myths along the way.

I may have dementia, but it doesn’t define me. I refuse, whilst I can, to allow it to change my life. I live my life one day at a time and avoid thinking about the future – I live by the mantra yesterday is history, tomorrows a mystery, today’s the present that’s why it’s called a gift. In essence I live my life to the full.

The aim of this short film is to highlight the experience of living with dementia, either as someone with a diagnosis or a care partner, and to address the question of what dementia is and how it should be viewed and provisioned for across the health, social care and community sectors.

Hopefully, the lived experience of both my father my mother and myself can contribute to making things better for other people, and there are many of us and more to come whose lives will be touched by dementia

Dementia brings with it many stereotypes. It’s not a normal part of ageing and it can occur in younger people too, it’s also not all about memory loss, in fact for many types of dementia memory impairments are not necessarily present. Our partner Dr Jonathan Kaye speaks more about this in the film