Innovative forum theatre on dementia in a care home setting
Authors: Wills Carmel , Douglas Ian , Williams Emma , Clarke Susan , Wilson James 
Published: November 2022

With the ageing population in the UK, we have found a rising number of our patients are being diagnosed with dementia [1] and a significant proportion live in care homes. Education to care home staff to help support these residents has been inconsistent despite a need to continue to improve skills managing residents with dementia [2].

We developed an interactive training event, ‘Communication in Dementia’, based on the learning needs from a local care home. We opted to use Forum Theatre as a tool to deliver this training. Forum Theatre is where a challenging real-life scenario is dramatised by actors using a pre-written script in front of a group of participants. The group is then facilitated to reflect on what they have observed and explore solutions in a safe environment. This method has been applied successfully in teaching of healthcare professionals such as in nurse education, but its use in the care home setting is uncommon [3]. Despite offering and confirming places to twelve care workers for a two-hour in-person session, only four were able to attend the session on the day. We collected pre- and post-session qualitative and quantitative feedback from the care workers and a written ethnographic reflection of the session.

Prior to this session, none of the care workers had experience of Forum Theatre. After the session, the feedback received was positive, particularly about the interactive element of the session, demonstrating how the use of Forum Theatre created an enjoyable and valuable learning experience and that all of the care workers felt more confident communicating with residents with dementia after the session. Thematic analysis of the care worker responses in the ethnographic data recorded demonstrated themes including building meaningful connections with residents and recognising burnout in care workers.

We believe that the use of Forum Theatre to teach Communication in Dementia creates an insightful learning experience for care workers, promoting active involvement in the session. We were disappointed that so few care workers were relieved from duties to attend the session on the day. This may indicate the pressures that the workforce are experiencing. We hope that in sharing the learning from this event, we may promote the use of Forum Theatre in care homes as a means of developing care workers to enhance their skills and ultimately to improve the experience of residents with dementia in care homes.

1. Wittenberg R, Hu B, Barraza-Araiza L, Rehill A. Projections of older people with dementia and costs of dementia care in the United Kingdom, 2019–2040. London: London School of Economics. 2019 Nov.

2. Smith SJ, Parveen S, Sass C, Drury M, Oyebode JR, Surr CA. An audit of dementia education and training in UK health and social care: a comparison with national benchmark standards. BMC health services research. 2019;19(1):1–9.

3. Middlewick Y, Kettle TJ, Wilson JJ. Curtains up! Using forum theatre to rehearse the art of communication in healthcare education. Nurse education in practice. 2012;12(3):139–42.