On 31 May – 1 June 2022 Alzheimer Bulgaria Association participated at the Kickoff Meeting in Florence, Italy for the Erasmus+ project DementiaCare which is being implemented in a partnership with organizations from Turkey, Spain, Italy, Portuguese, Slovakia and UK. At the meeting representatives of Alzheimer Bulgaria Association presented the Association’s work and goals, as well as the situation of the people affected by dementia in Bulgaria.

The main objectives of the project are:

1. provision of a comprehensive training program for educators, so that they can gain a deeper understanding of the nature of dementia and the needs of the patients and provision of the right skills necessary for work in the health and social sectors;

2. evaluation of the effectiveness of a specific training curriculum;

3. dissemination of knowledge and evidence on how a highly specialized training curriculum based on the usage of “Art Therapy” can be applied and best implemented in the treatment of dementia and how it can improve the quality of life of people with dementia.

4. European sharing of experiences, through staff exchanges, exchange of good practices, training courses, joint activities, etc.

DementiaCare project will be implemented within two years and its long-term goal is to develop a training methodology based on the usage of art therapy, understood as a treatment tool capable of reducing the behavioral symptoms of dementia applied in the early stages of the disease and to disseminate a greater knowledge of the complexity of the clinical picture of dementias.