Center for Aging Research and Education
CARE at the UW-Madison School of Nursing

Dementia Friendly Toolkit

In response to family caregivers’ stories of challenging medical appointments, community groups’ requests for dementia friendly training materials, and the increasing number of people living with dementia, CARE developed training materials to build communication and advocacy skills to respectfully engage people living with dementia.

CARE’s dementia friendly training materials can be used with students, healthcare or other professional staff, family caregivers, community groups or local businesses. They include:

There are also scenario-specific, open-source audio tracks that can be played during the role play simulations (click to download): Bank, Clinic, Restaurant and Retail.

Thanks to the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment and the Helen Daniels Bader Fund of Bader Philanthropies for support to develop the toolkit and training videos, and to the Evjue Foundation for support to disseminate the toolkit to community groups.

I learned specific strategies for communicating in ways that are easy to understand, like speaking in short simple sentences, and helping them narrow down choices gradually.

It was really helpful to see common situations from the side of persons with dementia.

I appreciated the opportunity to practice in a safe space and see how my actions can affect persons with cognitive impairment or dementia and their families.

—Three UW–Madison students who trialed the dementia friendly simulations

Assembling your Toolkit!

  • The booklet, which contains all information needed to carry out six role-play simulations, can be requested here
  • The four short training videos are accessed using the links to the left
  • The four ambient audio tracks are accessed using the links to the left

We do not provide simulation equipment. The booklet walks you through several options to reduce the sensory perception of participants in the role of a person living with dementia.