In 2016, the Dementia Friendly Community (DFC) of Abbiategrasso in Italy, was founded as a pilot project, by Federazione Alzheimer Italia, the Italian Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Health. Together, they chose this DFC to take part in Work Package 7 (WP7) of the 2 EU Joint Action on dementia (“Act on Dementia”), along with Greece, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. Abbiategrasso DFC was chosen as a test project, both for the implementation and for the adaptation of best practices. The main objective of the Joint Action’s WP7 programme was to create a framework for dementia-friendly communities and translate the experiences that emerged from each pilot site into concrete implementations. The work of the project was presented during the 29 Alzheimer Europe conference in The Hague.
Students from a local high school in Abbiategrasso created a video, organised a flash-mob in the main town square and distributed a dementia questionnaire to people attending the weekly market. The information gathered from these initiatives was used to measure the impact of the DFC, with the objective of determining what further action is needed to ensure that dementia-inclusive initiatives are meaningful and have real impact on the lives of people with dementia.
The findings from this project and other similar projects, and from the Joint Action final report itself, have been incorporated into a "Recommendation for the development of the Dementia Friendly Community", drafted by the monitoring group for the implementation of Italy’s National Dementia Plan. The group, coordinated by the Ministry of Health is composed not only of other general departments directly involved (Health Planning and Information Systems) but also of representatives of all the Italian Regions, of the National Institute of Health, of the National Alzheimer associations and of scientific societies. Starting from February 2015, the implementation of the National Dementia Plan is monitored through the Monitoring Table, coordinated by the Ministry, which aims to check the transposition of the National Dementia Plan at the regional level.
Two previous documents, produced by this monitoring group, have already been approved by the State-Regions Conference: National Guidelines on Assistive Therapeutic Diagnostic Paths (PDTA) and National Guidelines on the use of Information Systems. Federazione Alzheimer Italia says that in the coming weeks, the document on dementia-friendly communities will be examined and, it hopes, approved quickly thereafter, so as to inspire other communities in Italy to join, thanks to good practices and tested national and international models.
