Journeying through dementia
Overview
Journeying through dementia was a large-scale research study that aimed to find out whether attending a 12-week programme could support people in the early stages of dementia to continue living healthy, fulfilling lives. The Journeying through Dementia programme involved twelve weekly community based group sessions with two trained health practitioners and four individual one-to-one sessions with one of those practitioners. People attending the programme could involve a supporter (usually a family member or friend) if they liked, but they did not have to.
Funding
The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research - Health Technology Assessment (14/140/80). It commenced in December 2015 and ran for four years up until November 2019. The award was held in partnership with Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust and took place across thirteen UK sites, working in collaboration with a number of NHS trusts and Universities.
480 people living with dementia and 350 supporters across thirteen areas in the midlands and north of England took part.
This was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with half of the study participants receiving the Journeying through Dementia programme and half not. All those recruited to take part helped us by completing questionnaires to find out if those who received the programme benefitted compared to those who did not receive the programme. Everyone in the study continued to receive the care and treatment that they would have usually received.
References
The research has completed and we are busy disseminating the findings. Two papers have already been published this year:
Kirsty Sprange, Jules Beresford-Dent, Gail Mountain, Ben Thomas, Jessica Wright, Clare Mason, and Cindy L Cooper Journeying through Dementia Randomised Controlled Trial of a Psychosocial Intervention for People Living with Early Dementia: Embedded Qualitative Study with Participants, Carers and Interventionists. Clin Interv Aging. 2021; 16: 231–244. Published online 2021 Feb 4. doi: 10.2147/CIA.S293921
Kirsty Sprange, Jules Beresford-Dent, Gail Mountain, Clare Craig, Clare Mason, Katherine Berry, Jessica Wright, Shazmin Majid, Ben Thomas & Cindy L Cooper. Assessing fidelity of a community based psychosocial intervention for people with mild dementia within a large randomised controlled trial. BMC Geriatrics volume 21, Article number: 119 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02070-8
Funding
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Technology Assessment (project number 14/140/80).
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The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Health Technology Assessment, NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health.
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