Methods for finding out about the experience of people with dementia

When commissioning or producing dementia services, you need to recruit people affected by dementia to give their opinions. Find out who to involve and how to recruit them.

We asked people with dementia to tell us what makes a big difference for them, when they are taking part in user research. There are some easy actions you can take.

How to conduct 1-2-1 interviews in a dementia-friendly way, making sure you are considering people's complex communication needs. 

Co-production is a way to involve people who have dementia when producing or evaluating services or products for people with dementia. Find out how to do it in a dementia-friendly way.

Intercept real people affected by dementia from online support/advice services and invite them to take part in research.

There are a number of different group activities you can use to gather feedback from people who have dementia, including focus and service user groups, workshops, electronic voting, and mystery shopping.

Find out about what Dementia Care Mapping is, and how to use observation in combination with other methods for measuring the experiences of people with dementia.

Surveys can be a dementia-friendly way to measure experience. They can take place face-to-face, using video or online.

The are unobtrusive ways you can gather the experiences of people who have dementia. They include content analysis, empathy mapping, video, photo and solicited diaries.