Martin Robertson & Faye Watson - Farmers & Dementia (Mind Our Farmers)

 Martin Robertson, a lived experience expert and Faye Watson, a  Public and Community Engagement Consultant, speak about the project they are leading to start conversations about dementia in farming communities in Scotland. Mind Our Farmers Episode Summary: 01.10  Martin and Faye introduce themselves 03.12  What is the Mind Our Farmers Project? 05.10  Why is this project important for farming communities? 07.25  Why are rates of dementia higher among farmers? 10.00  What is the experience of being a farmer with dementia? 15.30  What partnerships are they exploring for the project? 19.30  What is it like after a diagnosis of dementia, what support services are needed? 28.55  What is the role of community?   Key Messages: Farmers often lead quite isolated lives and often will only meet in places like the local Mart.  Mind Our Farmers is a project funded by the Inspire Fund from Alzheimers UK and is about opening up conversations about dementia with farming communities in Scotland. They are interested in what the challenges are and what resources are needed.  Farmers often don't see anyone apart from their immediate family, social isolation, farming chemicals, and noise in the work environment are potential risk factors for dementia. Farmers often do not talk about their health.   There is a lack of research around dementia and farming.  A review paper from Bangor University  identified that farmers experience more than half of the known risk factors for dementia. Farmers work much longer than most people and often do not retire, many symptoms can be missed or overlooked.   There are over 100 different types of dementia, this often involves your brain slowing down and forgetting, this can be dangerous around machinery.   Sometimes farmers have to give up farming when their wife is diagnosed with dementia, there is a lack of support in that situation. They are hoping to have young farmers involved to start intergenerational conversations about dementia.  From the community advisory group the message was that they need practical advice around managing the farm during and after diagnosis.  There are challenges for tenancy farmers as there is no social housing available in local areas.  There is a lot of interest in the project and they are exploring different partnerships.   Less than 50% of people get appropriate post diagnostic support, the reality is that you get two phone calls and leaflets dumped on you.   In Scotland there is free personal care available, however access to this is not available in rural and remote areas.  Home care workers do not get paid for traveling and travel distances can be vast, so it is difficult to get care workers to work in these settings as they would lose money.  To get a diagnosis you have to go to a hospital with an MRI machine for a brain scan, this can be a long distance away.   GP surgeries can also be 5 or more miles away and may not have public transport access.   Once you have a diagnosis of dementia you are placed on a palliative care pathway.  Many people want to be at home at the end of life, unfortunately many people get stuck in hospital at the end of life as no support is available locally. Community has an important role in supporting people with dementia, but small communities can also be a source of stigma.   RSABI website: https://www.rsabi.org.uk/  Farmstrong Scotland website: https://www.farmstrongscotland.org.uk/ Review by Jen Roberts and colleagues at Bangor University who is on our community advisory group to contextualise our work to Wales: https://pure.bangor.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/79308988/1-s2.0-S0743016725001500-main.pdf Paper from team at University of Iowa assessing whether agricultural workers are at greater risk of dementia: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8849525/  First project in the UK that was funded to look at farming and dementia, that was back in 2016: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/centre-for-research-in-environment-and-society-ceres/farming-dementia-and-networks-of-care  Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health! Rural Health Compass