In Bosnia and Herzegovina, during World Alzheimer’s Month (September), Alzheimer udruženja AiR reported the following activities:
Dementia-friendly society – a meeting with the Minister of Internal Affairs for the Canton of Sarajevo
At police headquarters in Sarajevo, Alzheimer udruženja AiR had a meeting with the Minister. A significant problem of the Bosnian society is: not recognising “the face of dementia”; of not accepting the fact a person has dementia. Every day, in our society we have examples of missing people. Police systems and police officers aren't prepared for the situations involving people with dementia, or are even the cause of a problem. Generally, then, the police react in an inappropriate way. We agreed that it is necessary educate police officers and adjust the system for better managing in crisis situations. The next steps will be: making the educational programme for police officers, including dementia issues in the police curriculum and developing new standards linked to dementia issues. In association with this issue in Bosnian society, one web portal did an interview: “The ways we can recognise a disoriented person with dementia and what we can do to find the missing person!”
Project “Let’s increase the percentage of diagnoses”
In the Bosnian society, we have less than 3% diagnosed people from the total number of those affected. Because of that, the Center for Dementia Sarajevo ran the project “Dementia through the Primary Health Care System – let's increase the percentage of diagnoses in Bosnian society“. As the first step, on World Alzheimer Day, the Center for Dementia published a handbook “Dementia from the angle of Primary Health Protection“ by Dr Osman Kučuk, which will be used as educational material, and then as guidelines for GPs and nurses. The important thing is that the handbook brings “the protocol of medical research” to the timely diagnosis, which can help GPs to determine the necessary path to diagnose. The funds for the first two educational meetings (Sarajevo, Tuzla) are in place.
