Pam MacLeod,
who works in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs, describes herself
as a program development professional. Since early in her career, she has
helped foreign, state and municipal governments develop new policies and
programs and now she works to address the burgeoning number of seniors, a good
many of them with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia.
She joined
Elder Affairs in June of 2014 and became involved in the Dementia Friendly
movement in 2015.
“We heard about and learned about the Dementia Friendly
movement,” MacLeod commented.” We wanted to see what Minnesota was doing as
they had already become a national model.” Wisconsin was another state that
emerged as a leader. And now Massachusetts itself could become an example to other
states. To get things started, they consulted Olivia Mastry of Minnesota, a prominent
figure in the Dementia Friendly movement. Not long thereafter, Massachusetts
became an “early adopter” of dementia friendly practices along with only a
handful of other states.
An example of the Dementia Friendly movement was a planned
community in the Netherlands established in 2006, called Buurtzorg. It was a
remarkable breakthrough. Over time, this Dutch outpost provided a new model for
dementia care. A decade later, in the Boston area, I witnessed a large audience
at a kick-off event for Dementia Friendly Massachusetts. “We had quite a turnout,”
MacLeod noted. On my weekly blog, I had unprecedented “hits” on my blog.
Typically at that time, I would get around 300 visits a week. But that week I got
around 900 visits. And that wasn’t a fluke. The next week I got close to 600
visits. How this happened is that there was a critical mass of people who
wanted to learn more about the dementia friendly
movement. And if the organizers had settled on a smaller venue, much of the vitality
would have been sapped. In the logistics business, you have to plan well ahead.
The four tenets of the organization are that people want
control for as long they can; people strive to maintain or improve their lives;
people seek social interaction; and people seek ‘warm’ relationships’ with
others. With that in mind, I am looking forward to observing the movement grow,
in the U.S. and beyond.
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