Blog: Age Scotland's dementia training goes digital

The number of people affected by dementia in Scotland is expected to rise by 50% in the next two decades to 120,000.

Early diagnosis and more widespread awareness surrounding the condition is crucial and can help prolong the quality of life for people living with dementia, which is why Age Scotland is seeking to raise this awareness, not only of the signs and symptoms of dementia but also how we as a society can be more inclusive of people living with it.

Our interactive training looks at understanding the signs and symptoms of dementia, how to communicate with people living with dementia, how best to include and support them and how to reduce the risks of developing dementia – and its recently gone digital.

With the coronavirus pandemic halting face to face training sessions for the time being, Age Scotland’s Dementia Training team have taken to the cyber-airways to begin delivering a new online version of their free workshops.

Alongside the obvious advantage of being able to come to training in your pyjama bottoms if the fancy takes you – and the disadvantage of trainers not providing tea and cake - offering training this way also means people from more remote communities can take part just as easily as people from the larger towns and cities where face-to-face training usually takes place.

It’s also a chance to bring people from different areas together for a very worthwhile exchange of ideas and experiences.

If you work or volunteer with a community group or service that supports older people, or would like to boost your ability to include and support people living with dementia, email dementiatraining@agescotland.org.uk to be added to the mailing list or to request training for your organisation.

If you’re at all hesitant about trying this new Zoom training and looking for the motivation to sign up, look no further than this feedback from recent participants:

“If I am completely honest, when I heard the training was going to be on Zoom I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I found it very useful and somehow you managed to make an online training session interactive and engaging so thank you very much."

“I really felt like we were all in the room together!”

“You managed to make it very engaging and interactive despite the online nature of the beast.”

Types of training available:

• Dementia awareness for community and voluntary organisations
• Dementia awareness for workplaces
• Dementia inclusion training for activity providers
• Rights-based training for carers of people with dementia
• Training to enable organisations to deliver their own in-house dementia training

Get in touch to discuss our training sessions for you or your organisation by emailing dementiatraining@agescotland.org.uk.