In theoretical part I presented dementia and its main characteristic, such as prevalence in Slovenia, symptoms, stages, causes and possible treatment. Then I wrote about models on understanding dementia, where I mentioned the biomedical mode, psychology model, sociology model and social work model. I also presented stigma and myths and defined levels of stigma and ways of their elimination. I concluded the chapter with awareness raising about dementia, for example by organizations. Then I presented home and institutional care, where I focused on homes for older people and within them on models of care (which are integrated model, segregated model, half segregated model and household groups), relationships among residents and importance of communication. In last chapter in theoretical part, I focused on social work with people with dementia. I presented concepts, methods, tasks and roles of social work. Regarding the methodology, I presented the qualitative research, where main purpose was to find out, what should be done in practice for better awareness and for better relationships toward people with dementia. During my research, I was most interested in how residents understand the concept of dementia, where they had opportunity to learn about dementia, what experience they had with residents with dementia in retirement home and what they need for better cooperation. I found out that residents are aware of dementia. Under the term of dementia, they most often imagined disease, way of showing disease, investigation and cause of occurrence. They know how to recognise person with dementia, they know their needs and where they need help and they also know who can take care of them. They are most often informed about dementia through media. They consider awareness about dementia among older people differently and they also agree that awareness is better today than in the past. They are aware of importance of better awareness and its influence on better relationships toward people with dementia. They experience their co-residents positively, while meeting them less positively. They believe that residents with dementia are differently accepted among other residents. The majority did not have the opportunity to see and know the protected section. Less than half of them cooperate with resident with dementia through clubs, conversations and socializing. For better communication and cooperation they expressed the need for advice from experts. I suggest to give residents opportunity to socialize with residents from protected section and organise talk groups and lectures about dementia.
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