An Investigation of the Wishes, Needs, Opportunities and Challenges of Accessing Meaningful Activities for People Living with Mild to Moderate Dementia.

Many people are keen to be actively involved in social life and activities, but even at an early stage, dementia can have a negative impact on social participation and access to leisure activities. As part of the IDoService project, this study has investigated people's needs and wishes, barriers and facilitators to identify opportunities for improving access to meaningful activities. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 5 people living with mild to moderate dementia, 2 familial and 2 professional care partners, as well as 12 people working in the field of dementia and/or community activities. Thematic analysis has highlighted the benefits of participating in meaningful activities, such as empowerment and pride, social contacts, and feeling useful to others. A number of barriers to participation relating to individual and environmental factors were reported. Even where participants praised dementia-friendly activities and facilities, they advocated activities inclusive for all and mentioned that some people might be reluctant to participate in dementia-labelled activities because they may not be suitable for their needs. These results indicate the need for developing tailored opportunities for people with mild to moderate dementia and provide valuable insights for researchers, service providers, policymakers and charities wanting to improve access.

This is Me: Evaluation of a boardgame to promote social engagement, wellbeing and agency in people with dementia through mindful life-storytelling.

Receiving a dementia diagnosis is a difficult experience for most people and often affects their wellbeing negatively. To support people's wellbeing, in a therapeutic context, life-storytelling, reminiscence and mindfulness are used with people with dementia. In an everyday context, traditional games are used as a resource for stimulating memory, cognition and social activity. While an increasing number of creative strategies are available to support people with dementia, the area of board games design and their effect on wellbeing is underexplored. This paper reports on the evaluation of the This is Me (TIM) mindful life-storytelling board game by the European project MinD. Using a co-design methodology, TIM was developed with and for people with mild to moderate dementia to support their wellbeing by enhancing self-empowerment and social engagement. A focus group methodology was used to evaluate TIM with 50 people with dementia and 19 carers across four countries. TIM was evaluated with regard to the usability and experience of the design as well as people's emotional wellbeing, social engagement and agency. The thematic analysis demonstrated that the combination of life-storytelling and mindfulness allowed players to engage in meaningful social interaction and, as a result, they reported enjoyment, learning, more acceptance of the past and present situation, and that they perceived looking forward into the future together with others as helpful. The study demonstrates that design can be a useful means to support people with dementia in aspects of emotional wellbeing, social engagement and a sense of agency.