ABSTRACT
First, I will give some examples of general and national trends. Dementia care today and in the future is on the public agenda in Sweden. Media, central governmental organizations and a number of local organizations are active in this field. Examples of this are a recent work task force within
Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, who published a comprehensive review of present and future dementia care in Sweden (Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, 2003). Furthermore, SBU (The Swedish Coundl of Technology Assessment in Health Care) has a large project running that is intended to establish Swedish guidelines for evidence-based dementia care. Another indicator of standards of dementia care is the comprehensive Swedish research on very different aspects of dementia, from genetics to epidemiology, which also includes nursing sdences and a large number of intervention trials in dementia. It is not possible to review the research in this context, but it is of general interest to note that, recently, an offidal funding initiative (the Swedish brain power project) was launched providing research funds of 20 million SEK yearly for 5 years that is intended to develop early diagnosis and intervention in dementia. This project also seeks to increase the cooperation both between different research fields and between research groups and other parts of dementia care such as local authorities and the pharmaceutical industry.
