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Zeroing out preventable disability: Daring to dream the impossible dream for dementia care
Author(s) -
Khachaturian Ara S.,
Hoffman David P.,
Frank Lori,
Petersen Ronald,
Carson Brad R.,
Khachaturian Zaven S.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2017.09.003
Subject(s) - dementia , dream , gerontology , executive director , associate editor , library science , psychology , medicine , management , disease , neuroscience , computer science , pathology , economics
Across the globe, many national public health strategic plans articulate an aspiration to improve the quality of care for individuals with chronic brain disorders that affect memory, movement, and mood. Although few would argue against this intent, the development and delivery of coordinated implementation plans that balances the perspective of many different stakeholders—spanning from the individual to the societal—is daunting. As the US National Institutes of Health Summit on Dementia Care on October 16–17, 2017, and other similar national planning efforts address this difficult process, this editorial posits adoption maximizing and maintaining function as a key measurable public health outcome. Perhaps the most critical element necessary will be for disparate interests ranging from government, non-profit patient advocacy, academia, health care, consumer goods, consumer services, telecommunications, utilities, financial institutions, and technology developers and manufacturers to agree that minimizing preventable cognitive disability is a key societal goal. This will require these different stakeholders to converge around the goal. This will also require that they accept some uncertainties like the present state of scientific knowledge and technical expertise but build the path to the goal nonetheless. Stakeholders should ask questions about these crucial uncertainties in such a way to develop solutions. Their questions should focus on the requirements necessary to transform a vision into a reality, the challenges or barriers that must be surmounted, and the essential resources that will be needed to achieve the strategic goal to extend the optimal functioning of people with dementia and other chronic brain disorders.