Dementia Simulation Toolkit

The INTenSE Dementia Simulation Toolkit (DST) aims to provide health care professionals and other
dementia care partners with tools and scenarios to employ the self-experience method in dementia
care. The DST helps users experience what it’s like to have dementia through the use of state-of-the-
art self-experience practices, such as such as virtual tours, role-playing games, and theater
laboratories. These tools (and the associated training provided) allow professionals and other
dementia care partners to walk in the shoes of a person living with dementia, change dementia care
practice and improve quality of care by enhancing empathy and understanding..

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What is DST?

The Dementia Simulation Toolkit includes a range of training scenarios that reflect some of the lived experiences of people with dementia. These scenarios use different methods and tools to simulate dementia symptoms which allow people to gain insight into dementia through self-experience.

Who is it for?

The DST is designed to educate, equip and train health and social care professionals to better support and care for people living with dementia. It is best applied in a training/educational context as a standalone course or integrated into current training.

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Visual impairment has been reported as more common in people with dementia compared to the general population. It is likely that having both dementia and vision loss together can impact coping, cognitive function, and activities of daily living.

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Older people are likely to experience hearing loss alongside other conditions, like dementia. It is more than just difficulty in hearing quiet noises & cannot be addressed by simply increasing volume.

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Motor symptoms are common across different types of dementia. Evidence tells us that decreased hand motor function due to ageing is related to a reduced ability to perform daily activities and increased functional dependency. It is important to understand how these potentially disabling symptoms may impact people with dementia.

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Perception is related to our senses as it helps us to have a conscious understanding of our world and our experiences. How a person with dementia perceives things often changes as their dementia progresses - this can happen because of physical changes to the brain or the sensory organs, e.g., our eyes and ears.

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Memory loss can be frustrating and difficult to cope with. Our memory is a complex system and we make use of different types of memory when we do different things. Different types of memory problems may be more common in some types of dementia than others. Changes to any of these memory systems can result in different types of symptoms.

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Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia are a major part of living with dementia, regardless of the type of dementia. This set of symptoms are just as important as cognitive ones; they are also related to functional and cognitive impairment.

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Losing the ability to communicate can be one of the most frustrating and difficult problems for people with dementia, their families and their carers. People with dementia may experience a gradual lessening of their ability to communicate, both in language and speech.

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