My Life, My Goals – a resource to give hope to people with dementia
In January 2021 the UK was in a lockdown due to Covid restrictions. At the same time a team of people with dementia began work – to create a new resource to help newly diagnosed people with dementia identify their own goals and strategies.
Download My Life, My Goals by clicking on the images below. You can download an interactive version or a print version:
You can also download the My Plan section of My My Life, My Goals by clicking on the image below:
The idea for this resource came out of some research about cognitive rehabilitation. Cognitive rehabilitation is a type of therapy that can make managing everyday activities easier for people in the earlier stages of dementia. It is often delivered via sessions with a therapist. Cognitive rehabilitation can help people to identify and achieve, in a step-by-step way, the goals that are important to them. You can watch a short animation that explains cognitive rehabilitation here:
Our job was to take some of these research ideas to create a resource that people recently diagnosed with dementia could use themselves.
This was no small task – we couldn’t meet face-to-face and we didn’t really know much about cognitive rehabilitation!
Nine people with dementia, Linda Clare and Ola Kudlicka from University of Exeter and Rachael Litherland from Innovations in Dementia worked together over eight months to talk, learn, share, translate, write and design. One of the advantages of lockdown was that we could include people from all over the UK and overseas. We quickly stopped talking about cognitive rehabilitation and began to talk about our wishes and desires –the things that bring joy to our lives and make our hearts sing.
“It is my life. It’s not your life. It’s my life. It’s the goals I want to set and the goals I want to achieve.” – Alison
And there we had it. The title for this guide. My Life, My Goals. A guide we wished had been available when the nine members of the team were being diagnosed. A guide full of hope:
- Hope that there are ways to manage difficulties
- Hope that there are solutions to problems
- Hope that you can live a good life with dementia
My Life, My Goals is full of ideas, stories, strategies and solutions to help you think about your goals. You will learn about:
- How to identify a goal
- Deciding on your goal
- Getting in a positive frame of mind (leaving stress behind)
- Choosing a method that is right for you
- Creating your own plan
You do not have to read the guide from beginning to end. Each section is colour coded to help you find the information most relevant to you.
We hope you find the guide easy to use and it inspires you to set your own goals.
“When you feel very down you drop into a deep valley. You need to find your way up. You cannot find your way up unless you can see a light at the end of the tunnel. This resource can be your lighthouse.” – Emily
Watch a series of films to accompany My Life, My Goals below:
Rachael Litherland
Co-director, Innovations in Dementia
