BLOG – INDUCT in Japan

By Dr Deborah Oliveira, INDUCT Programme Manager

Part of the INDUCT team (www.dementiainduct.eu) has recently visited Japan to attend the Alzheimer’s Disease International Annual Conference (http://www.adi2017.org) and a local care home in Yokohama, a neighborhood nearby Tokyo city.

Dr Deborah Oliveira (INDUCT Programme Manager), together with four INDUCT Fellows; Aline Barroso, Harleen Rai, Hannah Christie and Sara Bartels, opened the first day of the ADI Conference with an oral presentation as part of the “Young investigators on the road to a holistic approach to dementia prevention and care” Symposium. The Symposium was promoted by the World Young Leaders in Dementia (WYLD) (https://wyldementia.org), a network of passionate, young professionals working across disciplines and borders to develop innovative dementia solutions. Each of the INDUCT Fellows also had the opportunity to present a poster about their individual research projects and to network with a variety of researchers, health professionals, with people living with dementia and their carers, as well as support providers. This was a great chance for the INDUCT Fellows to learn more about the latest advances and care approaches to dementia.

The ADI Annual Conference is one of the world’s largest and most important conferences on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, featuring a range of international keynote speakers and a high standard of scientific and non-scientific content. This year more than four thousand people from over 100 countries around the world joined the meeting in Kyoto.

Still in Japan, Dr Oliveira and two INDUCT Fellows had the opportunity to visit a care home which currently uses robotics and other technologies as part of their day-to-day care, for people living from early to advanced stages of dementia. The team received the wonderful translation support of the mom of one of the IMH Research Fellows, Dr Orii McDermott, who are both Japanese native speakers. With a lot of enthusiasm, Mrs Sanae helped us to get the most of our visit and to ask all the questions we had. The team is so grateful for her incredible help!

Arigato!