Dementia Awareness

Dementia awareness training delivered at your workplace or live online. Half day or full day. The foundational knowledge every member of a care team needs to support people living with dementia safely, with genuine understanding, and from the individual outward.

Course Overview

Dementia isn’t one condition. It’s an umbrella term covering more than 200 subtypes, each with different causes, different patterns of progression, and different effects on the individual. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common, but vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia all present differently and require different responses. A care worker who has only ever understood dementia as memory loss isn’t prepared to recognise or respond to the full range of what they’ll encounter.

This matters because the gaps in understanding cause real harm. A person with dementia who asks the same question repeatedly isn’t being difficult. They genuinely don’t have the memory of asking it before. A person who becomes distressed in a busy communal area isn’t being challenging. Their brain is overwhelmed by sensory input it can no longer filter. A person who resists personal care isn’t being uncooperative. They may not understand who’s in their room or what’s happening to them. When staff don’t understand this, they respond to the behaviour rather than to what the behaviour is communicating. That causes distress to the individual, stress to the care worker, and, in the worst cases, unsafe care.

Dementia Awareness Training gives care staff the knowledge, empathy, and practical understanding to support people living with dementia safely, respectfully, and in a way that’s genuinely centred on the individual. This is a foundational awareness course, suitable for every member of a care team regardless of role. It reflects current best practice guidance from Dementia UK, the Alzheimer’s Society, and NHS England’s Well Pathway for Dementia, and aligns with CQC expectations under Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care and Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect.

Course Details

  • Duration: Half day (3 to 4 hours) or full day (6 hours), depending on group needs
  • Delivery: Face-to-face in-house or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Certificate: CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Dementia Awareness
  • Awarding organisations: CPD-Accredited
  • Validity: No formal expiry. Refresher is recommended every 1 to 3 years, or sooner following changes to guidance, workplace practice, or care needs.
  • Group size: Maximum 12 learners per trainer

Who This Course Is For

This course is right for anyone who supports, works alongside, or makes decisions affecting people living with dementia.

  • Care assistants and support workers in care homes, supported living, and domiciliary care
  • Senior carers and team leaders
  • Residential, nursing home, and community care staff
  • Health professionals working with older adults or individuals with neurological conditions
  • Staff supporting individuals in the early, middle, or later stages of dementia
  • New starters completing the Care Certificate
  • Experienced staff who have never had dementia awareness addressed in a structured way

Staff already working directly in dementia care who need practice-level depth rather than foundational awareness should look at our Dementia Care Level 2 course instead.

Not sure which level is right for your team? Get in touch, and we’ll help you work it out before you commit.

Why This Training Matters

There are currently an estimated 982,000 people living with dementia in the UK, projected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040.

In health and social care settings, dementia is not a specialist subject. It is part of everyday work, and the quality of care a person with dementia receives depends significantly on whether the people supporting them actually understand what dementia is and what it is not.

CQC inspectors look closely at how dementia care is delivered. Under Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care and Regulation 10: Dignity and Respect, inspectors ask individuals and families about their experience, look at whether staff demonstrate genuine understanding of the condition, and look at whether dementia care is being delivered with genuine insight or on autopilot. A team with strong dementia awareness is a team that inspectors notice for the right reasons.

Dementia is the leading cause of death in England and Wales. NHS England’s Well Pathway for Dementia sets out a clear framework for improving the quality of care and support for people living with dementia at every stage. That framework depends on a workforce that understands dementia well enough to deliver on it.

What the Day Covers

All content reflects current best practice guidance from Dementia UK, the Alzheimer’s Society, and NHS England’s Well Pathway for Dementia throughout. Topics covered include:

  • What dementia is and what it is not: dementia as an umbrella term and why the distinction matters
  • Types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and others
  • Signs and symptoms across types and stages: what to look for and why presentations vary so significantly between individuals
  • Why dementia affects everyone differently: the role of type, personality, life history, physical health, and environment
  • The progressive nature of dementia: how needs change over time and what that means for care
  • Behaviour as communication: understanding distress, repetition, resistance, and withdrawal without judgment
  • Communication strategies: adapting language, pace, tone, and environment to support understanding and reduce anxiety
  • Person-centred dementia care: using life history, preferences, and routine to support the individual
  • Dignity, inclusion, and independence: maintaining these throughout every stage of dementia
  • The impact on families and unpaid carers: understanding their experience and how staff can support them
  • Challenging myths and stigma: addressing the assumptions that lead to poor practice
  • Dementia and the care environment: how physical spaces affect wellbeing and behaviour

Every course is also built to include your organisation’s documentation, care planning approaches, and escalation processes as standard.

How the Course Is Delivered

This course is available face-to-face at your workplace or chosen venue, or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Both formats are fully interactive. Online delivery is a live session with the same discussion, scenarios, and trainer engagement as the room-based version, not a pre-recorded module.

Groups are capped at 12 to ensure every learner gets sufficient time for discussion and reflection. Every session is built around your working environment, the specific types of dementia most prevalent in your service, and any practice gaps identified through supervision, complaints, or CQC feedback. If you haven’t reviewed your dementia awareness standards recently, we can discuss what a refresh might look like during the enquiry process.

Delivery includes:

  • Scenario-based discussion drawn from real care settings, including misinterpreted behaviour, communication failures, and responses that caused unnecessary distress
  • Reflective exercises that encourage learners to examine their own assumptions and responses honestly
  • Practical communication strategies that can be applied immediately in role
  • Discussion of dementia as an umbrella term and why individual differences are the starting point for everything

Dementia Awareness or Dementia Care Level 2?

Both courses are built around the same commitment to person-centred, dignity-led dementia care. They serve different staff groups and different stages of knowledge and practice.

Dementia Awareness is the right starting point for any member of staff who works with or around people living with dementia, regardless of role. It builds the foundational knowledge that underpins everything else: what dementia is, how it presents differently across individuals, how to communicate effectively, and how to respond to behaviour as communication.

Dementia Care Level 2 is the right choice for staff who already have that foundation and are actively involved in direct dementia care. It goes significantly further: detailed care planning, medication awareness at a care worker level, structured reflective practice using real case material, and advanced communication strategies for moderate and late-stage dementia. If your team includes staff who have been working in dementia care for some time but have never had their practice examined in depth, Level 2 is where that work happens.

Many organisations run Awareness with all staff and Level 2 with their more experienced direct care team. We don’t make that determination for you; the responsibility sits with you. But we do provide guidance throughout the enquiry process.

Certification and Validity

On completion, learners receive a CPD-Accredited Certificate of Achievement in Dementia Awareness.

There is no formal expiry, but a refresher is recommended every 1 to 3 years, or sooner following changes to guidance, significant changes to the needs of individuals being supported, or where supervision or audit identifies gaps in practice. Many organisations align dementia awareness refreshers with their wider mandatory training cycle or Care Certificate induction programme. For teams ready to go deeper, our Dementia Care Level 2 is the natural next step.

Why Organisations Book With Prima Cura

Most training providers arrive with a course. We arrive with yours.

Before the day, we gather information about your workplace: your incident reporting forms, your internal procedures, the specific hazards your team actually faces. On the day, your trainer works that into every scenario, every discussion, every practical exercise. If your staff work in a care home, they’re not practising on hypothetical office workers. If your team are lone workers, that context shapes how the session runs.

It means the training lands. Not because it was well-delivered in a generic sense, but because it was relevant to the people in the room and the situations they’ll actually encounter.

A few other things that matter to the organisations that book with us:

  • 98.9% learner satisfaction across all Prima Cura courses
  • All trainers hold Enhanced DBS certificates and maintain ongoing CPD
  • We advise honestly on the qualification level at the enquiry stage. If a different course is a better fit for your workforce, we’ll say so before you book, not after

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Where We Deliver

We deliver in-house training at your workplace or chosen venue across Manchester, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West. We also deliver nationally across England, including North England, South England, London, and Surrey.

All sessions are led by experienced Prima Cura Training instructors. Groups are capped at 12 per trainer to protect the quality of hands-on learning.

Our associate network means we can deliver across England. You can meet the team on our Associates page.

FAQs

What is the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia. Dementia is an umbrella term covering more than 200 subtypes, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common, accounting for around 60 to 70 per cent of cases. Other common types include vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. Each has different causes, different patterns of progression, and different effects on the individual. Treating dementia as a single condition leads to a one-size-fits-all approach that fails most of the people it is supposed to support.

Why does dementia affect people so differently?

Because dementia is not one condition, and even within the same type, every person is different. The type of dementia, where the brain damage occurs, the person’s age, personality, life history, physical health, and environment all influence how it presents and progresses. Two people with the same diagnosis can have entirely different experiences. This is why person-centred care is not just best practice in dementia support. It is the only approach that actually works.

Does this course cover challenging behaviour in people with dementia?

This course does not use the term challenging behaviour. Behaviour in people living with dementia is always about communication. It expresses an unmet need, a source of anxiety, pain, confusion, or distress. When staff understand that, they stop trying to manage the behaviour and start trying to understand what is behind it. That shift is one of the most practically significant things this course produces, and it applies in every care setting across Greater Manchester, the North West, and nationally.

Does this course cover the impact of dementia on families and unpaid carers?

Yes. Living with a family member with dementia, or providing unpaid care for someone with dementia, is one of the most demanding experiences a person can face. This course addresses the emotional and practical impact on families and unpaid carers, and how care staff can support them as part of a whole-person approach to dementia care. Understanding the family’s experience makes care workers more effective, not just more compassionate.

Related Courses

Book or Enquire

Book your training or request a quote

Tell us your team size and your sector. We’ll come back with a quote, the right advice on qualification level, and a straight answer on whether this is the best course for your team.

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Our Commitment to Quality and Compliance

At Prima Cura Training, all courses reflect current UK guidance and best practice.

All trainers are experienced professionals with relevant qualifications and ongoing CPD. Because many of the organisations we support work with vulnerable individuals, all trainers hold Enhanced DBS checks.

This course is reviewed against updates from Dementia UK, the Alzheimer’s Society, NHS England’s Well Pathway for Dementia, the Care Quality Commission, and current UK dementia care guidance, including the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and Skills for Care workforce standards.

You can read more on our Quality Assurance and Compliance page.

Reviewed by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | 25+ years in health and social care | 15+ years as a trainer | Last reviewed: June 2026 | Next review: June 2027

 
This page is for general guidance only and reflects UK legislation, NHS England guidance, and sector best practice current at the date of review. It does not constitute clinical or medical advice. Dementia Awareness Training is an awareness-level course for care workers and does not replace clinical assessment, diagnosis, or specialist dementia intervention, which must be carried out by appropriately qualified healthcare professionals. Families or individuals concerned about a possible dementia diagnosis should contact their GP in the first instance.

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