ACT on Alzheimer's

https://actonalz.org/

Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging

North St. Paul, MN

https://actonalz.org/

ACT on Alzheimer’s is a volunteer-driven, statewide collaboration seeking large-scale social change and community capacity-building to transform Minnesota’s response to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. ACT was established in 2011 by a subgroup of the State’s Alzheimer’s Disease Working Group to implement recommendations made to the Legislature. The long-term goal is to stimulate statewide action on public policies and programs that will advance and sustain Alzheimer’s readiness and community-wide support. A volunteer-composed Leadership Council, Steering Team, Leadership Groups in five major goal areas and thirty-three Community Action Teams of volunteers are collaborating to help communities create a supportive environment for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. Successes to date include development of best-practice educational curricula and practice tools for clinicians that have been adopted by four health systems; development of a web-based toolkit to help communities assess and advance dementia capability; and an economic model that projects health care cost savings in Minnesota associated with participation in in-person caregiver intervention. The ACT on Alzheimer’s provider practice tools and interdisciplinary curricula will be the foundation for a national dementia curriculum developed by the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA), resulting in national dissemination.