Nazmul Hussain

Bangladeshi communities experience poor health outcomes and have higher risk factors for vascular dementia. This article explores the perceptions of people living with dementia, as well as the perceptions of their family members and caregivers, and gathers their views on current dementia support services in order to make recommendations to improve the provision of dementia support services in a UK Bangladeshi community. A total of 25 semi-structured face-to-face and virtual interviews were conducted with individuals with dementia, their family caregivers and dementia service providers from a UK Bangladeshi community. The interviews were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim. NVivo was used for thematic analysis. Family members and caregivers of people living with dementia demonstrated a strong sense of obligation and interpersonal motives for providing care at home. Despite their dedication, care partners struggled to provide adequate care due to work commitments and a lack of dementia knowledge. Cultural and language barriers were identified when accessing health and social care services. This article provides a further look into a UK-based Bangladeshi community’s experience with people living with dementia. Their views can contribute to a better understanding of the perceived challenges that the Bangladeshi community faces in accessing dementia health and social care services and support, thereby enabling better decision making by service providers and policy makers. These findings will also inform the development, delivery and adoption of dementia policy support, as well as the integration of diversity into dementia policy to shape future approaches to care provision.

While much of the care literature has focused on the benefits of social farms for people living with dementia, less research has examined the accessibility of this form of support. Conducted in England between 2023 and 2024, this study examined access to social farms by people living with dementia using Levesque’s conceptual framework of access as a navigational guide. We surveyed 32 social farm managers, held four online focus groups—two with care professionals and two with social farm staff—and conducted 14 single or dyad interviews with people living with dementia and either their family carer or a social farm volunteer. The sample included six nonfarm users unaware of farm‐based services, all of whom were people living with dementia originally from India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan but now living in England. The inclusion of multiple perspectives provided novel insights about accessibility and the cultural meaning of animals, which has not been reported in farm‐based studies before. Overall, we found a wide variation in access to social farms by people living with dementia in England. People who access a social farm are overwhelmingly White British with the means to travel independently to a social farm (i.e., access to a car and/or a carer who can drive). The study shows how Levesque’s conceptual framework is a helpful navigational tool for researching access to social care. However, to make the framework more compatible for research on access to social care services, and in particular, forms of ‘green care’, we recommend that researchers incorporate more detailed consideration of intersectionality and access to specific facilities and activities within a service, beyond access to the service itself.

The last three census data highlighted that UK Bangladeshi communities have the worst health outcomes. This includes a higher risk of type two diabetes and heart diseases; both are risk factors for developing vascular dementia. However, little is known about Bangladeshi community members’ understandings of dementia, including cultural myths. This paper focuses on the cultural myths, superstitions, and stigma surrounding dementia in an English Bangladeshi community from the direct experiences of people living with dementia, their caregivers, and the views of dementia service providers/stakeholders. This qualitative research was undertaken with three distinct participant groups using semistructured interviews (n = 25), who were recruited from community settings. The first and second participant groups explored the experiences of people with dementia (n = 10) and their family caregivers (n = 10). The third group examined stakeholders’/service providers’ views (n = 5). Interviews were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim. Findings were reached using an interpretive approach, emphasising the sense people make in their own lives and experiences and how they frame and understand dementia. The study revealed that participants with dementia and their caregivers have “alternative” knowledge about dementia and do not necessarily understand dementia in a Westernised scientific/biomedical context. Misconceptions about dementia and belief in various myths and superstitions can lead people to go to spiritual healers or practice traditional remedies rather than to their GPs, delaying their dementia diagnosis. This paper concludes that there is a lack of awareness among the Bangladeshi participants and a need for targeted awareness about dementia to help dispel cultural myths and combat the stigma surrounding dementia within the Bangladeshi community.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.59321/BAUETJ.V4I1.9 AUTHOR(S)A. K. Soykot Azad Snigdho1, Nazmul Hussain1*, Md. Abdul Hamid2, Nasirul Mumenin1, Tamanna Jannat1, Anika Tahsin1, Md. Rajib Ali1, Partha Pratim Debnath1 ABSTRACTDiabetes mellitus is a cluster of conditions that impact the body’s utilization of glucose, a vital Read More ...