“On 9th July 2013 some members of the Darnall Dementia Carers Group participated in a focus group for the Valuing Active Life in Dementia (VALID) research study. This research aims to develop a community occupational therapy programme for people with mild to moderate dementia and their family carers, living in the community. This occupational therapy programme is based on work done in the Netherlands, which found benefits to people with dementia in their ability to carry out activities, quality of life and mood. For carers, quality of life, mood and sense of competence also improved. This programme was also found to be cost effective.
The group members talked to researchers from the University of Sheffield about the occupational therapy programme, sharing their experiences, giving their thoughts and views. This will help inform the development of the programme. We would like to thank all those who participated very much indeed. We greatly appreciated it. Their thoughts are important to us and will help inform this research. The VALID research study is funded by the National Institute of Health Research. For more information please go to: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/valid/index
