Grant: og: Eva. Dementia Programs -Strm 1 Azrieli Foundation for aging w/neurodiversity

With the closing of institutions, many people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) are aging in their local communities, with the help of family members or disability agencies who support them day-to-day. Compared to other adults, people with IDD are more likely to have dementia and symptoms can start at a much younger age. However, the tools people typically use to screen for dementia do not work well for them and the staff and family members who support them often do not have the training to recognize the early signs of dementia. An IDD-specific dementia screening program has been developed which can help us identify dementia earlier and get people the help they need. This program has been recommended internationally and efforts have been made to implement it in different parts of Canada. However, we do not know whether or how disability agencies and families are using this screening program in practice. In this study, we will seek to understand whether people are using this program, what has helped implementation, and what has made it more challenging. First, we will conduct a multiple case study, where we will look closely at what happens in nine agencies from four provinces that have had training and are trying to use the IDD dementia screening program. Then, we will conduct nationwide surveys of disability agency staff and family members of older adults with IDD to understand the broader experience with the IDD dementia screening program across Canada. In the third year of the project, we will bring together the lessons learned from the case study and the surveys to develop new tools to help caregivers across the country use the IDD dementia screening program and improve how they support healthy aging for older adults with IDD.