2014 Italian EU Presidency dementia conference

On 14 November, the Italian EU Presidency held a conference entitled “Dementia in Europe: a challenge for our common future” in Rome, Italy.

The aim of the conference was to introduce activities on dementia on an EU level together with seeking a wider approach that included the contribution of other international institutions and bodies in order to maximise the possibility of larger cooperation. There were five key themes covered during the course of the conference:

  • Activities on dementia at EU level
  • Activities on dementia at international level
  • Activities related to the Italian Dementia Strategy
  • Strengthening activities at national levels
  • The way forward.

The conference conclusions noted that work on dementia will be strengthened if it takes into consideration the emerging international activities such as those initiated by the WHO, OECD and the G7-initiative “Global Action Against Dementia”. As such, the conference identified the following priorities:

  1. Need  to  augment  knowledge  about  dementia  prevention  measures  and  to support their implementation
  2. Improvement of timely diagnosis and care, including use of eHealth
  3. Support to informal carers and developing the skills of professional carers
  4. Building dementia-friendly environments
  5. Improving the availability of data on dementia, developing indicators, nationally based and internationally comparable, in order to increase our understanding of dementia.

In the light of the above principles, priorities and international activities, Member States were invited to  continue  addressing  dementia  as  a  core  issue  in  their  policies,  to  share  information  about  their  activities and to identify priorities for further dementia initiatives at an EU-level.