Life isn’t over: how best to communicate with people living with dementia

When Sandie Read was diagnosed with dementia at 57, she felt a mixture of fear, anxiety and depression. Fifteen years later and not only is she offering support to fellow sufferers but she's also working with researchers to improve the way people communicate and interact with those living with the condition. Sandie and her friends Roy James and Harry Davis met at the Forget Me Not Centre in Swindon, a service run by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership for people with early onset dementia. They formed a research group and have been working with the University of Bristol to create a series of videos to help train both support workers and those they interact with regularly. This is the first time people with dementia have been co-researchers on a project like this, with their insights, published in the Journal of Dementia Care , potentially helping to improve the lives of over 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia. Sandie, aged 72, said: "Everyone will tell you the same thing. You're diagnosed, and then it's 'you've got dementia.