Since Alzheimer Europe started its work, it has completed 15 projects. Currently, the organisation is involved in a further five projects:

1) National Dementia Strategies

In the last three years, we have updated all the Lawnet reports which were originally produced in 1999 and have produced new reports for all countries having joined the EU since that date, as well as for Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Turkey. So for this year’s Dementia in Europe Yearbook, we are moving on to a new topic, namely National Dementia Plans, focusing specifically on medical and scientific issues. Our goals are:

1. to identify the medical and scientific issues included in each National Dementia Plans in order to enable a comparison of the different plans.
2. to provide an overview of other regulations or instruments which address these issues (particularly but not solely in countries where there is, as yet, no National Dementia Plan).
3. to provide an overview of whether, and if so how, each country addresses the range of medical and scientific issues identified collectively in the National Dementia Plans.

2) Dementia Ethics Network - ethical issues relating to restrictions of freedom

In this project, we will explore the ethical issues linked to various forms of deprivation of freedom. We will carry out an extensive literature review and work with a small multi-disciplinary team of experts to produce a report highlighting the various relevant issues and containing our recommendations. The specific topics covered will include involuntary internment, driving, making a will, marrying, divorcing and having a relationship, voting and making decisions about how one wants to lead one’s life. The project started in January 2012 and the report will be published in December 2012.

3) PharmaCog

The Prediction of cognitive properties of new drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases in early clinical development (PharmaCog) is a project which was started at the beginning of 2010 thanks to significant funding (EUR 20.2 million) from the Innovative Medicines Initiative. It aims to tackle bottlenecks in Alzheimer’s disease research and drug discovery. We are collaborating on this project alongside representatives from 31 academic institutions, global pharmaceutical companies and small and medium enterprises.

4) NILVAD

Led by Trinity College, Dublin, NILVAD is an international research consortium which aims to develop a new Alzheimer’s disease treatment over a five year period. It has been awarded EUR 6 million by the European Commission. The consortium is comprised of 17 partners, including universities, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and Alzheimer Europe.

5) DECIDE

Alzheimer Europe is also part of the consortium of the Diagnostic Enhancement of Confidence by an International Distributed Environment (DECIDE) project, which is funded through the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7). The aim of DECIDE is to design, implement, and validate a GRID-based e-Infrastructure. Over this e-Infrastructure, a service will be provided for the computer-aided extraction of diagnostic markers for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia from medical images. The project started on 1 September 2010 and Alzheimer Europe will help with the dissemination of research results to the patient and carer community.