Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2019_Joomag | Page 38

FEATURE SOCIAL MEDIA
© GettyImages/anyaberkut
T
he idea of an improvement project around
the use of Twitter to support people
living with dementia was discussed with
the AHP national dementia consultant,
Alzheimer Scotland, during an Occupational
Therapy Scottish Dementia Working Group meeting.
The project would focus on the promotion of
occupational therapy, how to access us, and how
an occupational therapist can help people living with
dementia and their carers.
A group of five NHS occupational therapists
volunteered to take part in the project.
Now, more than ever, people with dementia are
communicating using smartphone and tablets and
are active participants on social media, sharing their
experience of living with dementia.
It therefore seemed timely to dovetail a new
dementia Twitter site with the increasing number of
Twitter users within dementia circles. The weekend tweets were designed to be
tweets from the AHP blog (www.alzscot.org/
talking_dementia) and the AHP strategy document
‘Connecting People, Connecting Support’
(Alzheimer Scotland 2017). The AHP consultant took
responsibility for these tweets.
Finally our Twitter profile @AHPDementia was
designed in the Alzheimer Scotland colours and had
a clear branding and identity.
Prior to our official launch date, we took the time
to explore our individual NHS social media policies
to ensure that we were operating within safe and
appropriate guidelines.
We also explored governance issues and how to
block followers, what to do if someone complains
and who we aim to target as followers.
The project commenced in January 2018, and
each of the occupational therapists were allocated
a day of the week to tweet, incorporating the
themes of the AHP approach (Alzheimer Scotland had varied knowledge using Twitter. One member
reflected that they had no idea how to navigate
around Twitter, and added that they struggled to
understand ‘the rather unsettling concept of followers
2017) to our advice and top tips to living well with
dementia.
We agreed that we would include the hashtags
#withOTuCAN and #dementia in all our tweets. We
also spent time discussing which Twitter accounts
to tag in our tweets. and hashtags’.
Each social media platform comes with its own
unique language and communication style, so there
was much sharing of knowledge and techniques.
Another participant spoke candidly about their
experience of tweeting for the first time.
38 OTnews February 2019
The initial journey
There was some initial anxiety within the group as we