Dementia Friendly America

          

More than six million people are living with Alzheimer's disease in the United States.i Eighty percent of people living with dementia live at home or with family and one in five live alone.ii
 
Led by the Dementia Friendly America (DFA) Initiative, communities across the country are taking action to become dementia friendly by leveraging resources and partners across community sectors. Each part in the community has a unique role to play in contributing toward dementia friendliness including: business, community-based services and supports, faith communities, health care, legal and financial services, local government and residential settings.
 
Through the collaborative efforts of 35 national, leading organizations and co-chaired and administered by USAging, Dementia Friendly America is catalyzing a movement to more effectively support and serve those who are living with dementia and their care partners. The lead organizations represent various sectors of community and are collectively leveraging their national reach to activate their local affiliates, members and branches to convene, participate in and support dementia-friendly community efforts at a local level.
 
The Dementia Friendly America initiative grew out of a Minnesota program called ACT on Alzheimer's. During the 2015 White House Conference on Aging, Dementia Friendly America committed to expand to 15 communities beyond Minnesota in a year. In the first year alone, 48 communities across 36 states joined Dementia Friendly America and are striving to become dementia friendly. Now there are over 300 dementia friendly community efforts across the United States.
 
Dementia Friendly America also administers the Dementia Friends USA program, which is part of a global public awareness campaign working to increase awareness and reduce stigma of dementia.

If you are interested in finding more ways to make your community dementia-friendly, visit the DFA website.

Click here to make your contribution to the Dementia Friendly fund that USAging has launched to enhance technical assistance for Dementia Friendly America and Dementia Friends.
 
i. Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer’s Association: 2015 Alzheimer’s Facts and Figures, https://www.alz.org/media/documents/2015factsandfigures.pdf.
ii. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Living Arrangements of People with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias: Implications for Services and Supports, https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/257966/LivingArran.pdf.


Project Lead
Mary Ek, Director, Dementia Friendly America and Community Care Corps