​Jenny's Diary: supporting conversations about dementia with individuals who have a learning disability

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Download Jenny's Diary

Learning disability version

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This PDF version of Jenny's Diary booklet uses the terminology 'learning disability'

Intellectual disability version

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This PDF version of Jenny's Diary booklet uses the terminology 'intellectual disability'

Mobi version

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For use with Amazon Kindle

Translated versions

Italian

German booklet

German postcards

Mandarin

Norwegian (text only)

Dutch booklet

Dutch postcards

French booklet

French postcards

e-pub for mobile devices

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For mobile phones and tablet devices. May require e-reader to be downloaded.

About Jenny's Diary book

Conversations about dementia are never easy. All dementia strategies in the UK state that everyone is entitled to know of their diagnosis, not only as a human rights issue but as part of developing appropriate and individualised post-diagnostic support. Currently there is limited guidance on how to talk about dementia to an individual with a learning disability. There is typically a fear of what will be understood, uncertainly over the words to use, and concern over how to cope with the response. Jenny’s Diary takes a three-step approach to address this:​

• Part 1 opens dialogue about why Jenny may be responding differently, and how she can be supported to live as well as possible with dementia.
• Part 2 suggests how to have a conversation with Jenny about her diagnosis of dementia.
• Part 3 contains guidance to talk about dementia with George, Jenny’s partner. This recognises the important role that friends or a partner can play.

A limited number of print copies of Jenny's Diary are available on request.

About Jenny's Diary postcards

The postcards give examples of activities that Jenny engages with in a typical week. They can be printed and passed around, held closer to look at if needed, viewed on a computer screen or stuck on a wall at home. The cards are larger versions of images in the book making them easier to use as discussion topics. The book can be used on its own without including the postcards if preferred. 

Download postcards

It is done with plain language and it is great that it talks about the issues of pain and delirium and how that can impact people. It gives some of the “whys” behind people’s expressions of frustration.

It shows that George & Jenny can still have a relationship even though Jenny has been diagnosed with dementia

Jenny's Diary was developed by Karen Watchman. Irene Tuffrey-Wijne and Sam Quinn as part of an Alzheimer's Society grant whilst at the University of the West of Scotland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Licence. This means that anyone can use or download the content and share it, but the authors and the resource must be credited. The words and the photographs cannot be changed by anyone else.