Our friends at Hungary’s Social Cluster Association have sent us the following report about the recent conference of the INDA project. In Hungary, the population has hardly any knowledge about dementia. Having been diagnosed, the patient with the family is overwhelmed with information and has little understanding about whom to ask for help. The knowledge of the experts and professionals has to be upgraded as they need to become competent in new methods in order to support in a complex way the family and the patient as well.
The Interprofessional Dementia Approach (INDA) project, run between 2015 and 2017, was a complex, innovative programme developed and implemented by the Social Cluster Association and Catholic Charity Service in Hungary. The project was intended to reveal the needs for services in dementia care, to develop a multifaceted care programme and to raise awareness about people living with dementia, as well as the opportunities of early diagnosis. The experiences from the INDA project form the foundation for a new project with the title “Adaptation of Interprofessional Services related to Dementia: Knowledge Expansion and Awareness-Raising through Local Communities”.
The opening conference (pictured) of the new project took place on 20 March 2019 in Győr, Hungary. The project consortium consists of three partners: the Catholic Charity Service, the Unified Health and Social Institution of Győr, and ‘Fazekas Gábor’ Residential Home for the Elderly in Hajdúböszörmény. The main focus of the activities within the project is to increase the awareness of the population around dementia, through well-structured communication activities, and to realise professional adaptation to enable high-level caregiving for older people living with dementia.
The programme is aimed at discovering the problems of non-professional family members of a person living with dementia in different types of towns and villages, and at elaborating methods that will be of service to them later on. Taking into account the differences among settlements is a key element of the project, because the societies of a small community and a larger city have, no doubt, significant differences. Diverse settlements are well represented by the consortium partners, to allow for well-founded formulation of recommendations.
Dr Ágnes Egervári, director general of the Catholic Charity Service, added that the new project aims not only at ensuring information and support for families, but also at preparing an interprofessional dementia programme. An education, research and information campaign is necessary to raise public awareness, to disolve taboos and to stop exclusion of people with dementia, as well as to gain wide political backing before the end of the project.
