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Description
Lithuania is one of very few countries in the European Union without a national dementia strategy, even though the WHO encourages member states to develop one by 2025. A dementia strategy is a way to plan a public health response to dementia with the goal of dementia prevention, as well as care and support for people with dementia and their carers to ensure they live well and fulfil their potential with dignity, respect, autonomy and equality. The project “Towards a Dementia Strategy: situation analysis and public awareness” aims to strengthen civil society organisations’ role in dementia strategy development and dementia advocacy through the following aims: 1) Undertake a situation analysis through policy, service delivery assessment, and stakeholder mapping. 2) In collaboration with key stakeholders and experts, create recommendations for dementia strategy development. 3) Raise awareness around dementia in Lithuania through multi-sectorial collaborations.
The results of the project will contribute to the well-being of people living with dementia, their carers and family members, support dementia strategy development in Lithuania, and empower civil society organizations to be actively involved in dementia awareness and friendliness development across sectors. The target population for the project includes people living with dementia and their carers, policy makers, public and private services providers within health/social services and other sectors (culture, education, etc.), as well as wider society. The project will be implemented with a number of partners, including LSMU, Klaipėda region Alzheimer''s community “Atmena”, the Lithuanian Public Broadcaster: Lithuanian Radio and Television, and Alzheimer Association of Iceland.
Summary of project results
Lack of:
representation of people living with dementia and their carers in public and for the policy makers.
awareness around dementia.
data about different aspects of dementia in Lithuania.
The project “Towards a Dementia Strategy: Situation Analysis and Public Awareness” aimed to advance the development of a national dementia strategy by implementing the objectives outlined in the “Towards a Dementia Plan: a WHO Guide“. The objectives included the following: 1) To undertake a situation analysis; 2) To create recommendations for the development of a dementia strategy; 3) To raise awareness about dementia in Lithuania.
The outputs of the project are numerous.
- Dementia situation analysis, which includes the assessment of dementia policy, health care and social care services, epidemiological analysis of dementia in Lithuania.
- Recommendations for dementia strategy implementation, including:
- Recommendation to the National Health Support Fund to launch a programme to support health and well-being of the carers of people living with dementia (The recommendation was accepted. The fund has launched a call to implement actions that support health and well-being of the carers of the people living with dementia).
- Recommendation to launch a dementia policy development working group for the Ministry of Health. The Advisory group of Dementia Policy was established, and has meaningfully contributed to the revision of the following aspects: Policy of the use of dementia diagnostic tools; Ambolatory services quality and access improvement for the people living with dementia, etc.
- Thematic Recommendations for the dementia strategy development.
- Numerous activities and actions to raise awareness about dementia in the public: language tool „How to speak about dementia“, animation movie „My Little Brain Robbie“, 6 podcast series on different aspects of dementia „Dementia from different perspectives“, lecture programme „Let‘s talk about dementia“, 12-piece comic to inform about modifiable risk factors, 3 conferences to discuss aspects of dementia care (early diagnosis, postiagnostic support, patient path), 3 short documentaries „Life with dementia“ as well as 2 personal interviews – all of these are recorded and accessible online for free.
- As part of capacity building initiative, we created 4 educational videos (18 videos in total) to support skills and capacity of the carers of the people living with dementia.
- Numerous presentations/contributions in conferences, articles, events that explore themes of dementia to raise awareness and understanding of dementia across the sectors, professions, etc.
- The key output of the project – founding of the national association „Dementia Lithuania“. Project was the key factor for the emergence of the association. The latter is going also to play the pivotal role to ensure the sustainability of the project results.
The project substantially increased the visibility of dementia theme in the public domain by creating a platform for dementia carers, a network of partners.
THe project created meaningful impact in the policy level to address aspects related to the well-being of people living with dementia, the lack of cohesive approach to dementia policy in general. Thanks to this initiative the momentum for the further development in the field of dementia, considering all seven action areas: dementia as public priority; openness to dementia; diagnosis, services and care; support for the carers; dementia information; dementia research; risk management, has been created.
Summary of bilateral results
The partner from Iceland stepped back from collaborating in this project because of the lack of human resources and capacity – this is an aspect relevant to many patients‘ organisations internationally.