Air travel for people with dementia: working together to identify barriers and facilitators to participation

A diagnosis of dementia should not mean the end of a person’s ability to participate in meaningful activities. However, we know that accessibility for people living with dementia requires improvement across a range of settings. Air Travel has been identified as one such area that is not meeting the needs of people with dementia. Legislation to protect the right to participation of people with hidden disabilities such as dementia does exist, however it is considered that, historically, this legislation has been largely interpreted in favour of those with physical, rather than hidden, disabilities. This presentation will outline the results from a series of face to face interviews with people with dementia and their travel companions in order to create a picture of where the main difficulties in participation in air travel lie and some strategies that may help participation. It will also identify if travellers with dementia are aware of their rights in relation to air travel in general or if more needs to be done to promote such rights within the United Kingdom. The presentation will also discuss how people with dementia, their travel companions, researchers and other interested parties such as The Civil Aviation Authority, who regulate air travel within the United Kingdom, have made valuable connections in order to improve the air travel experience for this consumer group. Such connections have included working at a local level at the University of Plymouth through doctoral research with a reference group and also at a national level through the work of the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge Group for Air Transport. Recent evidence shows that more people requiring assistance are travelling by air and , in the longer term, this study will inform guidelines for the aviation industry on how they can support people living with dementia in the future