Younger People with Dementia Service
The Younger People with Dementia Service provides assessment, diagnosis and appropriate treatment and care interventions for adults (generally aged up to age 65) with dementia, and their families and carers.
It is a service for people in Leeds provided within a variety of settings, including the person’s home environment which may be a care home, outpatient clinic and hospital consultation.
Who is the Younger People with Dementia Service for?
You may be suitable for the service if you are of working age and have been experiencing some of the following symptoms for a minimum of six months:
- memory problems
- language changes
- attention or concentration difficulties
- behaviour, personality or mood changes
- coordination or balance issues
The aims of our service are to
- investigate the cause of your memory problems
- provide support and advice to yourself, your family or significant others, to help them understand your problems and how best to support you
- provide any treatment for your memory problems and associated difficulties
- refer you to services that will be able to meet your needs
- discharge you from the service when you no longer need our support or when your needs can be better met by a more appropriate service
What to expect
Before the service offers you an initial assessment appointment, your GP will ask you a number of questions and complete some basic tests. This will include a brief memory test and a number of questions about your lifestyle and medical history which will support the team in assessing your referral.
Once a referral has been received with full details of your circumstances, the Younger People with Dementia Team will review this and inform you and your GP of the outcome.
If you are offered an initial assessment, we aim for the appointment to be within eight weeks from the date we received your referral.
Following your assessment, a diagnosis will be made and information and support will be offered at this time.
We can offer advice and support on building coping strategies, through one-to-one or group work, working jointly with our Memory Assessment Service and Community Mental Health Teams. We can also offer access to other community services who can provide information, advice, group work and support.
Treatment and care will also be provided. This includes things like medication, behaviour management and strategies, long-term care support and care coordination.
Referrals
This section is for health and care professionals looking to make a referral to the Leeds Younger People with Dementia Team.
To make a referral into our service, GP referrers in Leeds please use the new Referral and Decision Support (RADS) tool. SystmOne practices can access the RADS tool by loading the “DART Referral Hub” template. An MS Word version of the tool has also been published for EMIS practices.
Please email the completed form to our Single Point of Access referral.lypft@nhs.net.
Any internal referrers please complete this form YPWD Referral Form 2022. Please email the completed form to our Single Point of Access referral.lypft@nhs.net
To support referrers in providing the information the service requires, here are two examples you may find useful:
Referral Example A
Referral Example B
In order for a referral to be accepted, one of the following must have been present for a minimum of six months:
- memory problems
- language changes
- attention/concentration difficulties
- behavioural/personality mood changes
- coordination/balance issues
Please ensure you complete the referral form in full and include as much detail as possible. Referrals which are incomplete will be returned. Please submit your referral from a secure email address such as nhs.net. Alternatively, ensure the document is encrypted.
Please ensure all investigations are undertaken in Primary Care prior to referral. Please see the Leeds Dementia Care Pathway for investigation guidance.
If you would like to speak to a member of the team prior to referral or ask for advice, please call us on 0113 85 50548 or email wnwopsadmincmhtmem.lypft@nhs.net. The team aim to get back to you within 24 hours of receiving your email.
How to contact us
Our service operates Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm and is based at St Mary’s Hospital, Armley.
Please call us on 0113 85 50548. If we can’t answer, please leave us a message and someone will get back to you.
Admiral Nurses
In conjunction with Dementia UK, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust a small team of Admiral Nurses are available at St James’s University Hospital who are dedicated to helping families face dementia with support.
Our current team of Admiral Nurses offer appointments for people who care for someone with dementia who has complex needs.