The Polish Alzheimer's Association and Alzheimer Europe have the great honour and pleasure to welcome you to Warsaw for the 21st Alzheimer Europe Conference.
Organised under the theme “European solidarity without borders”, the conference will focus on how our societies can show greater solidarity with people with dementia and their carers and how Alzheimer organisations in all European countries have campaigned for greater inclusion and participation of people with dementia.
It is the second time that Alzheimer Europe has organised its Annual Conference in the capital of Poland. We met here for the first time in 1996 and there have been many changes which visitors to Warsaw will discover. Similarly though, there have been many changes in public perceptions and awareness of dementia and in care and management approaches. In particular, the growing recognition of Alzheimer’s disease as a public health priority is testament to the success of the continued campaigning of national Alzheimer associations.
At the same time, it should not be forgotten that the development of national dementia strategies has not yet happened in all countries. Perhaps good examples will give an impulse to those national associations, which have not been able yet to encourage their governments to implement such action plans and will show ways in which health ministries could be mobilised. We all are aware that without the active involvement of governments in the process of formulating national Alzheimer's strategies it will be very difficult to achieve success.
In times of economic difficulties and austerity measures, it is particularly important to provide support for those less privileged. People with dementia and their carers need our solidarity and we hope that our conference will explore different ways in which such solidarity can be shown, solidarity that does not stop at professional borders and that crosses geographical frontiers.
This was the context in which we launched our call for abstracts and we are delighted that a great number of speakers from different countries responded positively by submitting interesting proposals for presentations on their latest activities, projects and research. The Programme Committee was able to make an interesting selection and you will be able to choose to listen and learn from close to 100 dementia experts on a wide range of subjects.
We welcome you to Warsaw and hope that our conference will provide ample opportunities for networking, meeting old and new friends, as well as increasing our understanding of dementia.
