Hand-over of INTERDEM chair from Myrra Vernooij Dassen to Marjolein de Vugt

During are last INTERDEM meeting (29 november 2021), prof. Myrra Vernooij-Dassen handed over the chair to prof. Marjolein de Vugt. Their speeches can be read below.

The pleasure of facilitating

It was an honour, a pleasure and a great source of inspiration to chair the INTERDEM Network. INTERDEM has been founded in 1999 by EsmeMoniz-Cook, who inspired me to facilitate networking in an atmosphere of ambition and friendship. Sharing new developments in the early years of the INTERDEM network was exciting, especially when presented by Bob Woods. I felt inspired to contribute myself by bringing in the theme of my department, implementation science.

When I became INTERDEM chair in 2009 the network was growing in numbers and in stability. My aim in chairing INTERDEM was to facilitate the network to take responsibility in moving the field forward. Therefore a manifesto setting the research agenda was published in “our” Aging and Mental Health journal, repeated by a new one 10 years later. This was really helpful in contributing to European and national research agendas. The quality of joint proposals was enhanced by its coordination on a network level. This resulted in an array of new international projects and publications. What a pleasure to witness the growth of INTERDEM in the publications on our website! Being sorted on key themes, they are available for all those interested worldwide.

In striving to move the field forward it is essential to have an open eye for gaps, collective and personal ones. Being charmed by the psychological research of INTERDEM, I noticed that we did not sufficiently frame the relevance of social aspects in relation to dementia. As a medical sociologist, I felt social health might be a relevant concept in the debate on dementia as a multifactorial syndrome. Studying this requires the gap between biomedical and psychosocial research to be bridged. INTERDEM put social health on the dementia research agenda and we are fortunate to have big projects funded like DISTINCT and SHARED. We thus broaden our research to mechanisms playing a role in the onset of dementia, leading to fascinating new modifiable risk factors.

A yearly highlight is meeting you at the INTERDEM day and dinner. In these live meetings new initiatives such as taskforces arise. I cherish the collaboration in a board that became friends: especially Esme as sparring partner, Rabih as favourite co-worker and great organizer of INTERDEM days, Franka as (former) website chair and Marjolein as my successor. I want to use this opportunity to thank my secretary Alice van Eijk for being more than a secretary by taking care for INTERDEM and its members.

The relationship between Alzheimer Europe and its PPI group is one of reciprocity, a marriage made in heaven as Jean Georges said. This helps us to keep our focus on dignity and capacities of people with dementia and to consider dementia as part of life,and people with dementia as part ofour family, friends and neighbourhood network. Keeping them includedand hoping that others will do the same to us when we cognitively deteriorate.

INTERDEM has become a brand and psychosocial research is taking its place in dementia research. The network is flourishing. I step down as chair but I am happy to continue my contribution as a board member and hope to meet you next year in person.

Professor Marjolein de Vugt will be the next INTERDEM chair. Her dedication to both dementia care and research, her creativity, media friendliness and her charming leadership make me very confident that INTERDEM will further grow and blossom with Marjolein.

Emeritus Professor Myrra Vernooij-Dassen

Flourish

Twenty years ago I was a young PhD student. I got introduced to INTERDEM by prof. dr. Frans Verhey, who involved me in the organisation of an INTERDEM conference in Maastricht, The Netherlands. At this conference I was star struck when meeting prof. dr. Bob Woods, who was already then a leader in the field of psychosocial research in dementia and whose articles I devoured. Also prof. dr. Esme Moniz-Cook came to the stage, small in stature and invisible behind the lectern but big in her enthusiasm, vision and knowledgeability. She talked about challenging behaviour and it made quite an impression to me as PhD student focusing on this topic for my thesis.

Since than INTERDEM gave me so much opportunities, for example to contribute to joint papers such as the European consensus paper on psychosocial outcome measures. An international network lay at my feet, which is not self-evident when you are in your early days of your research career. It brought me possibilities to join European projects, for example the Actifcare project funded by JPND. And it gave opportunities to shape the European psychosocial research agenda, for example by contributing to the INTERDEM manifesto.

My experience is illustrative of the power of INTERDEM, to give all opportunities to individual researchers to contribute and to collaborate and together take a strong position in the field of psychosocial research in dementia. INTERDEM has flourished under the leadership of chair prof. dr. Myrra Vernooij-Dassen and co-chair prof. dr. Esme Moniz-Cook with its ever growing members but also the international collaborative actions and its influence to shape the European psychosocial research agenda. I see it as my mission to maintain that strength within a positively stimulating environment for all members. I was blessed to have Frans Verhey by my side pushing me as a young researcher to contribute to the network activities. But not everyone is that lucky. 

That underlines the importance of the growing network of young researchers in our INTERDEM Academy. In the coming years I would like to further strengthen the connection between the senior INTERDEM network and the junior Academy, for example by involving academy members more closely in the activities of the task forces and the board. I believe this will strengthen our network, give more manpower to our activities and it will support young researchers in their pathway to senior positions in the field.

Another challenge for the coming years is to professionalize the network more in terms of transparency in formal procedures and regulations. This is not my favourite part but inevitable due to the growth of INTERDEM, but without losing that we are also just a bunch of people who enjoy working together and making friendships.

And lastly, there is of course the major challenge to bring psychosocial research forward and to give this an even stronger and essential place in research and practice. So many challenges lay ahead of us. I’m greatly honoured to represent INTERDEM as new chair and I’m looking forward to work with all members to let INTERDEM flourish even further in the coming years.

Prof. dr. Marjolein de Vugt