Engaging People Living with Dementia in Decision-Making

Overview

The goal of this project is to:

• Work with people with different kinds of disabilities to identify strategies that can support people living with dementia to be meaningfully involved in decision-making; and
• Create resources for teaching healthcare stakeholders how to support people living with dementia to participate as much as possible in decisions that impact their lives.

The need for this project was identified through consultation with the community. Stakeholders and committee members who participated in the Health Care Consent Project told us that while law reform can enhance rights, education and capacity-building are critical to ensuring that rights are respected. Recommendation 22 of our report Conversations about Care states:

In order to better support the practice of all health care professionals and staff, best practice guidelines should be developed which addresses how to:

• Engage people who are living with dementia in health care decision-making; and
• Maximize the capacity of people living with dementia to participate in their health care decisions.

Participants needed

We are seeking participants for a series of virtual consultation events on strategies for including people living with dementia in decision making. The events will run from July 2021 to March 2022. We would like to hear from people living with dementia and other disabilities. We are also recruiting family members and friends for virtual consultation events on the perspectives of caregivers.

We will use what we learn from these group discussions to create tools for health care professionals and others on supporting people living with dementia to be involved in decision-making. We are also looking for partners to help recruit for and co-facilitate these consultation groups.

If you are interested in helping recruit or participating in one of the groups, contact Jess Fehrenbacher at jfehrenbacher@bcli.org or 778-548-9996.

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