What the trail aims to achieve
We provided the participants with these following questions:
1) What were your initial impressions of/experiences with persons with dementia? Who can suffer from dementia?
2) What is one takeaway that can be applied to your life currently - in thoughts, words, actions, etc.?
3) How do you think our perception of dementia impacts how we view the PWD community?
2) What is one takeaway that can be applied to your life currently - in thoughts, words, actions, etc.?
3) How do you think our perception of dementia impacts how we view the PWD community?
As part of CE Fest, the core purpose of the trail is to introduce the participants to a "hidden" community. In this case, the "hidden" community is the "persons with dementia" otherwise known as PWDs. With an ageing population, dementia will start to become a noticeable concern for the country. However, everyone can suffer from dementia, not just the elderly. We do acknowledge that the elderly is the group most susceptible to dementia and we would like to stress that dementia is not a natural part of aging.
The interaction with the elderly community is based on the ethos of community engagement, to understand the community, learn and build relationship with them. This is extremely poignant in our discourse when we discuss perspectives about the elderly, especially those inflicted with dementia. The sharing session highlighted the relevant technical knowledge that we should be aware of dementia and provided us some insights to help a random PWD when in need. The community walk aims to capture the dementia experience, and recreate the journey of how a person will interact and help the PWD to a safe place such as the Dementia go-to-point.
Overall, we hope that the trail has highlighted dementia awareness, taught us some new insights to help the PWDs and experience for ourselves how to help a PWD in need.
~ Benson
