Dementia Friendly Essentials

by | Jun 4, 2019

The country is facing a crisis regarding the availability of care services for people with dementia.  As the population ages, the number of older people diagnosed with dementia will increase.  Massachusetts is one of the states within the national network of Dementia Friendly America that encourage communities to foster seniors with dementia and those in their care network to live their best lives. Dementia Friendly America offers a myriad of materials, including a four-phase toolkit and sector guide videos, to make resources available to municipalities as they navigate the journey of becoming dementia-friendly.   Read the DF America Newsletter to learn about recent dementia-friendly developments around the country.

DF America Sector Guide- Essentials

In the process of becoming a dementia-friendly community, towns and cities must assemble an action team, sign the DFM Pledge,  and engage residents and local organizations. Communities may currently be operating programs or services without realizing that they are dementia-friendly.

Engaging core sectors of the community ensures that the dementia-friendly mission is widespread and meets different aspects of everyday life.  To become dementia-friendly, communities must engage a minimum of three community sectors including:

On the Dementia Friendly Massachusetts website, we have handpicked resources from our partners and other reputable organizations to share services specific to Massachusetts while also providing examples of thriving dementia-friendly communities around the world as inspiration.  In addition to consolidating helpful websites and documents, we also created free templates of outreach and marketing material to alleviate the burden of creating promotional documents.

Click here to see if your community is dementia-friendly.