Confident Conversations is a collaboration between the Neuroprogressive and Dementia Network (NDN) and Alzheimer Scotland. It is a forward-thinking initiative to assist in enabling everyone with dementia to be offered the opportunity to participate in research. This blog outlines the work that has been done in achieving these aims. It is an extract from the SDRC Annual Report 2022/23, which you can read in full here.

The aim of Confident Conversations is to empower Alzheimer Scotland staff, as professionals with an established relationship with the person living with a dementia diagnosis and their family, to have conversations about research participation.

It also assists in developing closer links with the local NDN team meaning that there is research expertise available and someone to contact locally about research.

The expected outcome will be a higher number of people participating in dementia research because of these conversations. This will help to meet the goals of increasing prevention, improving care and ultimately finding a cure.

From 2022/2023 financial year the Confident Conversations programme has:

    • Developed a workbook for all key Alzheimer Scotland staff to access
    • Developed and delivered pilot training to two sites, which enabling NDN staff to refine the content and delivery of the programme
    • Delivered a further 6 sessions and planned to deliver 4 more.

     

    Feedback on the sessions so far have ben largely positive. All respondents indicated that the training had introduced new ideas about how to have confident conversations about dementia research, with almost two thirds stating they felt more confident in general around research.

    The NDN are also gathering information about how staff who have been involved in the training are able to use their new knowledge to have conversations about research with the people they are in contact. While many Alzheimer Scotland staff have disseminated a lot of research recruitment materials, it will take a number of months to be able to assess the increase in referrals to research initiatives.

    The feedback received will shape delivery of future sessions and has been used to create new materials to support staff learning. This has included the Confident Conversations toolkit postcard (Figure 3) that the staff can use when thinking about research and talking to their contacts. It has been well received amongst Alzheimer Scotland staff.

    It has been suggested that this training is widened to a larger population in health and social care and one group of attendees wants this to be delivered to NDCAN and the SDWG. More trainings will be delivered to more remote parts of Scotland

If you are an organisation that is working in a field related to dementia/ brain health research and would like to write a blog for the SDRC website, please get in touch. 

 

 

 

Read more SDRC Blogs

Celebrating 10 years of the SDRC

Ten years ago today, on the 28 August 2013, the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium was established at the Surgeon's Hall, Edinburgh. The SDRC was created to enable greater co-ordination by pooling the resources, experience and expertise of the wide-ranging and...

Early Career Researchers: Kotryna Baronaite

Throughout August, the SDRC are celebrating our next generation of researchers by publishing a series of blogs from PhD Students/ Early Career Researchers.  For the first week, we are featuring those that were in the SDRC Impact Report 2019. First, we have Kotryna...

What’s is like to live with dementia and want to plan ahead? Film by Tharin Phenwan

What's it like living with dementia and want to plan ahead? A film by Tharin Phenwan   Postgraduate Researcher Tharin Phenwan, from the School of Health Sciences, has filmed a short monologue as part of his research output for the study 'Advance Care Planning...

COVID Impact on ECRs: Josie Fullerton

Today's blog is part of our COVID Impact blog series, where we are sharing the experiences of ECRs whose research has been affected by COVID, as well as helpful insights and tips to how to work through this time. If you are a dementia or brain health researcher and...

SDRC Annual Report 2022/23: Living with Dementia

Earlier this year, the Scottish Dementia Research Consortium launched our Annual Report. In addition to providing an overview of all dementia and brain health research in the past year, we also have a section in the report dedicated to each of the SDRC research...

More than a game- research into how football memories are helping people with dementia

Earlier this year, the SDRC's very own Living with Dementia theme lead, Professor Debbie Tolson, contributed a blog to the Scottish Funding Council's website on Football Reminiscence. We are delighted to share this blog with you below.  The discourse of football is...

Early Career Researchers: Angela Gregory

The SDRC are committed to celebrating our next generation of researchers by publishing a series of blogs to PhD Students/ Early Career Researchers.  This week we are featuring those that were in the SDRC Annual Report 2019/20. Read about the research by Angela...

SDRC Annual Report 2022/23: Informatics & Technology

The following is an excerpt of SDRC Annual Report 2022/23 which provides on overview of the research in the field of brain health Informatics & Technology, written by theme lead and SDRC Executive Committee member Dr Mario Parra Rodriguez. Summary of the theme The...

Early Career Researchers: Shaun Stone

We start off the fourth week of the SDRC's blog series on Early Career Researchers from Shaun Stone from the University of Aberdeen. Shaun's research relates to the SDRC's Diagnosis theme, which you can find out more about here. Shaun Stone is a final year PhD ERC...

Early Career Researcher Profiles

These Early Career Researcher profiles are some of the researchers that featured in the SDRC Annual Report 2022/23. We will share the rest of these profiles tomorrow, but you can read all profiles, and the rest of the SDRC report here  Lisa Davison  I am a...