People who aren’t your family of origin, but who support you as family

Memory problems can be experienced differently by different people. Read about common types of memory loss and our tips to help you cope and manage your feelings.

Types of memory problems
Memory problems vary from person to person. What you consider to be a problem depends partly on what you need or expect to be able to do.

Some very common memory problems include:

forgetting people’s names
struggling to remember day-to-day events or experiences
misplacing items (such as keys or glasses) around the house
getting lost in a familiar place or on a familiar journey
finding it hard to start or follow conversations
forgetting appointments or important dates (such as birthdays)
struggling with the steps in a recipe.
Managing your feelings about memory loss
Everyone reacts differently to memory problems. It’s normal to get frustrated, worried, or lose self-confidence.


You may find the following tips helpful.

Talk to others, such as friends, family or other people experiencing memory problems. They might have some helpful suggestions, and you may be able to find solutions together.

Do the things that you’re comfortable with.

Start with the memory problems that are having the most impact on your life. For example, regularly misplacing items like a mobile phone or keys.

Try to focus on the things you can remember and can do. You may well have a good memory of events from many years ago. There will still be many things you are able to do that you learned in the past.

[This definition from the Alzheimer's Society refers to people with dementia, but personas can of course be used to describe any group of people.]

Personas are fictitious characters developed to represent typical service users when organisations are looking to develop or improve services. They are a tool you can use to gather empathy and insights about the experiences of people with dementia. This can be used for service design.

PROS AND CONS

Useful for

- Rather than considering people who use your services by reference to characteristics such as ethnicity and age, personas focus on breaking down service users in terms of their needs, wants and preferences.

- They may be especially useful for
-- exploring very personal needs in a safe and less personal-seeming way.
-- considering the needs of smaller, specific groups of service users
-- developing empathy and insights to service user experience.

Disadvantages

- You need a facilitator for the process who is very familiar with the service user experience data and how to create personas.
- They are not real people.
- How accurate they are is limited by how rich a picture your service user data can provide and by the understanding of your service users of the people have who are creating them.
- They may be best used along with involvement, rather than instead of involvement, of people with dementia and carers.