Looking back, looking forward – by Prof Iva Holmerová

I was invited to write a few lines about my experiences and feelings after I left the Alzheimer Europe and INTERDEM committee. Honestly, I don’t feel that I have left anything or gone anywhere, I still feel part of these great initiatives of course, I am just not on their committees.

We founded the Czech Alzheimer’s Society in the late nineties almost at the same time as Alzheimer Europe was founded, and from the very beginning we also communicated and cooperated, and thanks to the support of Alzheimer Europe we managed, for example, to secure relatively early reimbursement of cognitive drugs for Alzheimer’s patients, we used and translated many information materials and so on. I have been on the board of Alzheimer Europe for 14 long years and have had the honour and pleasure of being its chair for the last 6 years. Jean Georges, the Executive Director, has created a really incredible and very professional team, which is now also able to participate in many scientific and development projects. We have set up regular meetings between committee members and representatives of our member organisations, in the European Parliament, regular training sessions and seminars on various topics and other forms of support for the member organisations with whom Alzheimer Europe communicates regularly. The role of INTERDEM is, in my opinion, absolutely unique and I think that for any other disease there is perhaps not such a large and significant and literally global network of researchers working on psychosocial interventions. In addition to this importance, we at Alzheimer Europe have always valued the contribution of INTERDEM at the annual conferences immensely. I think it is mainly because of the collaboration with INTERDEM that the Alzheimer Europe conferences have such a great scientific level. Also the European Working Group of People Living with Dementia, with whose members we have worked. There are many wonderful things I could still remember. But in truth, I don’t have much time to reminisce. Everything is going absolutely well and I am very happy about that and I am glad that I can still participate in the activities of both organisations, albeit less formally and regularly.

I am now trying to divide my energy between my family (I have four grandchildren aged 5-7-7-7), two of whom live in Prague and two in London, so I am trying to be with them more often. And we have some interesting projects in our Centre for Longevity Studies and Long Term Care, and I’m also involved with PhD students in longevity studies.

Prof Iva Holmerová