On 11 May, a UK-based research team published an article on the investigation of the experiences of adolescents and their perceptions of dementia in the journal “Aging & Mental Health”. The researchers provided questionnaires in four schools (across Sussex, England) assessing the attitudes of a group of 901 students (13-18 years old). The team noted in its publication that overall there was a tendency to have neutral or positive attitudes towards dementia and that females reported more positive attitudes compared to males (although not significant).
Furthermore, the article underlined that many adolescents indicated that they had little to no knowledge or direct experience of dementia. Most of them who had any exposure to the subject of dementia would have gained their knowledge from adverts, such as billboards and leaflets while over half of the respondents (596) indicated that they had never learnt about dementia in school. Interestingly, about a third (287) of the respondents also indicated that they would like to learn more about dementia.
