Dementia Adventure led a successful three-year partnership project funded by the National Lottery Community fund starting in April 2017.
The primary aim of the project was to give people living with dementia the opportunity and support to access the natural environment, with the associated benefits to health and wellbeing.
We achieved this by delivering a tailored package of training & support called ‘Dementia Adventure in a box’ for partner organisations to help them deliver outdoor adventure activities for people with dementia locally. This included both making existing activities more inclusive (and dementia friendly) and developing some activities only for people with dementia.
We worked with Methodist Homes Association, The Conservation Volunteers, Social Farms & Gardens and Abbeyfield.
The evaluation was led by the Association for Dementia Studies (ADS) at the University of Worcester, with specialist support from the Green Exercise Research Team at the University of Essex. The evaluation confirmed the importance of connecting with nature for people living with dementia and concluded that the project achieved the overarching project outcome of ‘People living with dementia are given opportunities and support to access the natural environment, leading to improved health and wellbeing’.
Green therapy is a winner, in most cases. We can calm people down with autism, we can help people with mental health, and we can certainly help people with dementia ‘cause we’ve proved it.
