People living with dementia from South Asian communities will benefit from improved culturally sensitive support, thanks to a new online toolkit launched by universities and charities.
The toolkit hosted by the Race Equality Foundation will provide enhanced care for members of South Asian communities – many of whom receive significantly less effective dementia care from statutory services compared to their counterparts from White British communities. They are at greater risk of developing dementia but are less likely to access all points of the care pathway – and more likely to present in crisis and/or at a later stage. They are more likely to face barriers including a late or missed diagnosis, reduced access to treatments, and inappropriate or inadequate support coupled with problems caused by language barriers. They often rely on local, community-led organisations for support. And numbers are expected to increase sevenfold by 2051.
The South Asian Dementia Pathway Toolkit (ADaPT) aims to provide more accessible, tailored resources enabling services to provide more culturally appropriate care. The toolkit includes short films, animations, awareness raising materials, assessments and post-diagnostic support – all of which have been culturally and linguistically adapted for people from South Asian communities.
To ensure the toolkit was designed to meet the needs of these communities, public participants from South Asian communities (along with staff from voluntary and statutory services) were asked to share their experiences and feedback about the current level – or lack – of support and to identify what more was needed.
The project was jointly led by researchers from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) and the University of Bradford, with other collaborators including the Race Equality Foundation, the Dementia Alliance for Culture and Ethnicity and NHS Bristol, North Somerset