Introduction
On 14 December 2015, Austria officially launched its first national dementia strategy during a ceremony attended by Health Minister Sabine Oberhauser and Minister for Social Affairs Rudolf Hundstorfer. The new strategy is based on the "Austrian Dementia Report 2014", which was jointly released by the two ministries in January 2015.
Alzheimer Austria was actively involved throughout the planning and development phases of the strategy. Antonia Croy and Monika Natlacen were members of several working groups to ensure that the needs of people with dementia and family carers are met. In particular, they sought the participation of people with dementia from the association’s "Supported Self Help Group" in policy decisions about their care.
Outline of the strategy
The strategy contains seven overarching objectives, with 21 recommendations for action. The objectives are:
- Ensuring the participation and self-determination of those affected
- Extending the provision of information in a broadly-based and target group-specific way
- Strengthening knowledge and competence
- Uniform design of the framework conditions
- The design and guaranteed provision of suitable dementia care offers
- Extension of coordination and cooperation focused on those affected
- Quality assurance and quality improvement through research
Further information
Further information on work related to the strategy and its implementation is available at: https://www.demenzstrategie.at/
The full strategy and the report which informed it can be downloaded below