MSP airport boosts efforts to become ‘dementia-friendly’ for travelers

To Alison Dermer, volunteering is second nature. A way to connect to people. To see the world beyond herself.

Over the years, she hosted children from Ireland, assisted at a hospice program and, for the past 14 years, volunteered at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

It made sense, then, when the airport started a Dementia-Friendly Airport Working Group a few years ago that Dermer would sign up for the training. Especially now that her mom is dealing with the challenges of mid-stage dementia — memory loss, forgetting to eat, feeling listless sometimes.

“I can see my mom struggling with a lack of purpose. Her driver’s license was revoked a couple of years ago,” Dermer said. “Her dealing with it got me even more invested.”

A growing roster of airports around the world are implementing new policies and procedures to ease travel for people living with dementia and their caregivers, said Sara Barsel, who founded the Dementia-Friendly Airports Working Group.

While there’s no agreed-upon definition of a “dementia-friendly” airport, at MSP it’s meant improving signage, installing adult changing rooms and adopting use of the sunflower lanyard, which identifies the wearer as someone with a hidden disability who needs extra time and patience from workers and volunteers. It’s part of a growing number of efforts by MSP to better accommodate people with special needs or challenges.

Besides training for staff, the airport works with the dementia group to hold workshops for people planning to fly so they can learn about the airport’s services and layout.

“They’re really doing pretty well,” Barsel said of the airport’s efforts.

While that’s the goal for every passenger moving through the airport, Phil Burke, MSP’s assistant director for Customer Experience, said he considers MSP to be the most disability-friendly airport in the country.

He pointed to the monthly meetings of the airport’s Travelers with Disabilities Advisory Committee as proof. It was started in 2014.

“It’s one of its kind. Really, it’s kind of the gold standard for airports in North America,” Burke said. “Other airports come to me and say, ‘You know, what can we do?’ So, I think we’re leading the way.”

The airport has developed training for working with people who are deaf or hard of hearing and for people who are blind or have low vision.

He credited Barsel’s tireless work since 2018 to put the challenges of passengers with dementia on the advisory committee’s radar. She’s been a fixture at the advisory group’s meetings and a “strong, strong advocate,” he said.

To make the airport dementia-friendly has meant getting that training to the airport’s hundreds of volunteers.

Sara Ernst is director of Volunteer Operations for the Airport Foundation, MSP’s 42-year-old nonprofit arm. Most of the folks providing customer service at the airport’s information booths are volunteers, Ernst said.

They also roam the airport, answering questions, acting as ambassadors. Some even make therapy dogs available for petting, Ernst said.

“Just to make people’s day a little brighter,” she said.

They also provide a service called Meet and Assist. Through it, she said, people can sign up for help getting through the airport. Folks can reserve help for an older parent flying on their own or have someone waiting at an arrival gate to guide a passenger to a connecting flight at another gate.

“So they’re not trying to figure out how to navigate an airport,” Ernst said. “A lot of the program is about having someone be there with them, answering questions.”

Like Burke, Ernst said the goal behind all this assistance for folks with disabilities and even those who need just a little help making their way around, is “to be the most accessible airport in North America.”

Barsel said that thanks to the work of the advisory group, MSP is getting there.

“It’s improving and it is doing some very good things,” she said. “And, you know, like with anything else, there is always something that can be improved. Remember that the airport is a small municipality.”

Dermer said she’s thankful to have gone through the dementia-friendly training, not just for her work with travelers, but for helping her mother. She’s her mom’s primary caregiver — and best friend. It’s upped her empathy, her knowledge about dementia — and the signs she’s seeing in her mother.

“It’s made me more sensitive to her needs,” she said. “I can really see it through her eyes.”