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Dementia Friendly
Community; the views of
graduate students
regarding dementia and
dementia friendly campus.
Priyanka Gautam
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Research Questions

 What do the college students know about dementia and being

dementia friendly?

 How important do they think this is in regards to the campus

environment?
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Literature Review

 routine activities most like shopping, managing finances, using

transport, keeping active more difficult causing people living with
dementia to withdraw in their limited space (Crampton & Eley,
2013)

 Everyone has a role to play in forming a vision about what a

dementia-friendly community should look like (Innovations in
Dementia, 2011)

 important to have strong networking within the sectors to for a

community to be dementia friendly (Wiersma & Denton, 2016)
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Literature Review

 few researches and projects within schools (Dementia Friendly

Stockton, 2017, Alzheimer’s Society, 2013, Dementia Action
Alliance, 2013)

 efforts seen in focusing on the school students to make them a

dementia friendly generation (Dementia Action Alliance, 2013).

 first of its kind in highlighting University students, as an

important sector for creating a dementia friendly community
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Method
 Design: Phenomenological study design

 Researcher background: Nurse, worked for people living with

dementia, involved in a project for Dementia Friendly Nevada

 Setting/Background: University, 20,060 student population

including 2,886 graduates, 16,510 undergraduate students and
396 non-degree seeking students. 8 colleges and 120 degrees
offered.

 Participants: Total 10, 4 from College of Health Sciences, 3 from

College of Engineering and 3 from College of business.
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Method (Cont…)
 Data Collection:

 Convenience sampling method for the colleges, Snowball sampling for the
students within the colleges.

 Interviews, structured around 10-15 minutes long

 Limitation:

 unbalanced knowledge of dementia among the participants due to their

background

 Data Analysis

 Comparisons were drawn out within different colleges from where the data
was collected to identify the diversity in themes within colleges
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Result

 Four themes emerged from the interviews.

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Theme 1: Familiarity with dementia
and being dementia friendly

 The familiarity on the subject was vague and to its simplest form.

 “Yeah I just I know it's kind of mental disorder which can be

caused by any kind of disease like brain disease other disease
or any injury maybe”(non health)

 Theme consistent across colleges

 Reasons for familiarity: first hand experiences with people living

with dementia, google searches, taught in class.
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Theme 1: Familiarity with dementia
and being dementia friendly
 Health vs non health sector:

 students in health sector had a certain advantage on the subject

matter with knowing the terms and the people

 “Yes, my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She passed away three

years ago, but she had lived with Alzheimer’s for about 5-6
years.”(health)

 “Yeah, I my grand mom seems to forget all the time. So now I realize
that could be it. But at that time, I didn't know it was dementia but she
used to forget to eat and sometimes they say she hasn't ate her
meals and few other things. But yeah now I think it's dementia.”(non
health)
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Theme 1: Familiarity with dementia
and being dementia friendly

 Over-familiarization

 “I'm not familiar with that one but I see like all of these students
in my class that I TA in, like they're having this kind of problem
here. You know, they keep forgetting things. So, you know,
maybe that is what they are suffering from. I need to look into
that.” (non health)

 Seen in person from non health sector.

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Theme 1: Familiarity with dementia
and being dementia friendly

 Dementia Friendly

 consistent among all the students, generalized

 information they gathered were through their own research

rather than someone providing them that particular information

 “Dementia friendly would be helping people who have dementia

helping them to live their normal life to do their daily activities
mostly. I knew dementia but when I was just doing some Google
research I thought maybe dementia friendly was also something
related to that.”(non health)
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Theme 2: Lack of sources of information
in campus

 Unaware about any kind of services that this campus provides to

people living with dementia and their family care partners.

 consistent among both the health and non-health related

constituents.

 “…I've never been there so I don't like actually what they do and
I know there is DRC I think they help people with a disability and
I think dementia is also a kind of disability.”(non health)
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Theme 2: Lack of sources of information
in campus

 did not receive any kinds of information regarding dementia from

the campus.

 “Ya no, the campus just provides some inconsistent information

about many unimportant things. I mean, even though I am in
Health Sciences, I never received these kinds of information,
you know.”(health)
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Theme 2: Lack of sources of
information in campus

 Linked the lack of information to being that particular subject

necessary enough for the campus since there might not be
many people who live with dementia and attend college

 “…the question basically boils down to how important that is.

Well, I don’t think there are too many people living with dementia
in the campus, so why would the campus invest on it? I don’t
understand.”(health)
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Theme 2: Lack of sources of
information in campus

 lack of information on the services provided especially in the

colleges that are unrelated to the health sector.

 “I don’t know, as I said it to you, I just know one of my friend who

has her mother living with dementia. But she never mentioned
any kind of services that she has known of in this campus. I
mean, maybe these kind of information is provided in School of
Medicine or the health center? They might provide these
information to them. I don’t know. I never checked.”(non health)
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Theme 3: Importance of dementia friendly
campus

 vastly divided on the opinions

 important learning aspect, not just for them, when they later go
and serve to the community, but also for current scenario where
they might have to face people living with dementia and their
family care partners in the campus itself.

 “Yes, I think it's necessary to accommodate for every student

because I worry that they cannot perform at their best when they
have to worry about forgetting or maybe the level of stress they
might face. You never know what is the age of the student or what
kind of problem he is suffering from.”(health)
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Theme 3: Importance of dementia
friendly campus

 worried about the people whose family resides in or around

campus, who might be suffering from dementia

 “one thing they can do is give some workshops are some

seminars on these problems so that other people can at least
understand what they go through and when they interact with
them.” (non health)
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Theme 3: Importance of dementia
friendly campus

 unimportant to have a dementia friendly environment since the

general perception is there was less number of students living
with dementia.

 “…the question basically boils down to how important that is.

Well, I don’t think there are too many people living with dementia
in the campus, so why would the campus invest on it? I don’t
understand.” (health)
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Theme 4: Contributing towards removing
the gaps in campus

 identified the gaps consistently across all the colleges which is

hindering the campus to be dementia friendly

 Also identified how the campus’s strengths can be worked

towards minimizing those gaps.

 “I think a strength of this University can be our numbers. And if

something is advertised well it can reach a large population like
we have a bunch of student dorms.”(health)
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Theme 4: Contributing towards removing
the gaps in campus

 gaps identified varied from the infrastructure, the size of the

university and also included lack of enough thoughtfulness
towards the matter by the campus authorities.

 “I don't know everything is offered to dementia. I also don’t know

anyone with dementia or their family partners care. And I think
that's a weakness because how am I supposed to put students
who may have dementia in contact with campus help
center?”(non health)
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Theme 4: Contributing towards removing
the gaps in campus

 gaps within themselves for contributing making their campus

dementia friendly

 “I don't think I'm skillful at all because I have not encountered

anybody with that and the information that I have about
dementia is generally from reading some information from
websites or from movies have said before so I don't know how to
interact with them. But if given the chance to interact with them, I
think I would definitely learn something.” (non health)
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Theme 4: Contributing towards
removing the gaps in campus
 Health vs non health

 “On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being like highly skilled one being
the lowest I would say like to say seven because I don't know
enough to help in terms of like services to offer or whatever they
may need but I do know that I can ask them as well as ask
around and figure it out. So, I don't think I'm really that low but I
don't think I'm really that high either.”(health)

 “I'm not that most skillful but I am like kind of friendly. But I lack
that confidence in interacting with them. I won’t know what to say
ya.”(non health)
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Theme 4: Contributing towards
removing the gaps in campus

 eager to learn, utilize the strengths and if given a chance, utilize

the strengths of the campus to make it dementia friendly.

 “…raising awareness of dementia. What it is and resources that

those care providers can utilize, if you're a student and you
found out your grandparents have dementia or your mom or
your uncle. So, tailoring resources toward those family
members. I think that’s something the campus should do. Yes.”

 “…If the campus provided the resources for me to learn about

dementia, I would definitely like to learn about it.”
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Major Findings

 Gaps in knowledge esp. among students from health versus

students from non-health related college

 the students were eager to learn and help people living with
dementia and their family care partners.

 gaps within the campus itself when it came to being a dementia

friendly campus, providing enough information about the
services they had for people living with dementia.
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Conclusion

 Since the students are the ones who after graduating will be
exposed to different jobs, which would introduce them to different
sectors of the community, it is important that the campus takes
responsibility and provides the set of skills required to the students
when they are in the college

 perception is that the college students are so young that this is

never an issue to the campus.

 necessary to educate the students on early age dementia as well

as help them broaden their views and look beyond just the
students as a part of the campus population.
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Conclusion

 Students are eager to learn

 Role of campus to provide enough information and opportunities

to learn and help make campus dementia friendly
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THANK YOU