Island Roads has taken steps to understand the needs of those living with dementia and to learn how best to communicate with those within the community who live with the condition.
People with dementia sometimes find it a challenge to communicate with contractors or people they come into contact with outside their everyday lives.
Understanding instructions or advice is not always easy and those delivering messages sometimes lack understanding of the limitations dementia places on sufferers.
Island Roads decided to do something about this by inviting Maggie Bennett, from the Alzheimer’s Café charity, into its Newport headquarters to speak to staff.
Maggie spoke to a group of more than 30 Island Roads employees, many from the customer hub, about the physical and mental effects of dementia and how they can better interact with sufferers they come into contact with.
Maggie’s visit was one of a series of sessions organised by Island Roads to help employees understand communications challenges faced by sections of the Isle of Wight community.
Previously, Age UK IW, Isle Access and Autism Inclusion Matters are among groups to have spoken to Island Roads staff.
Maggie said: “Since 2009, Alzheimer Café Isle of Wight, has been delivering education about dementia.
“We currently have five monthly cafes on the Island with two more to come on stream shortly. At these cafes we talk about the emotional and psychological effect of living with a dementia and the difficulties that arise from the effects that loss of memory and logical thinking abilities brings.
“We have a rolling programme of talks with the aim of Educating, Engaging and Enabling people to live well with dementia.
“I was able to talk to the team at Island Roads about our new project at Parklands in Cowes, which will be providing a community café and club for people with memory difficulties to stay for the day to engage with all sorts of activities and enable their carers to take some valuable respite time.”
An Island Roads spokesperson said: “It was a fascinating talk by Maggie.
“There was so much information about dementia that people perhaps do not know enough about and I think all the staff found it useful.”
“The session will help us better understand the needs of this important section of our community and, equally, help us to engage better with them.”
Click HERE to tind out more about the Parklands project.
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