Dementia is a syndrome, usually of a chronic or progressive nature, caused by a variety of brain illnesses that affect memory, thinking, behaviour and the ability to perform everyday activities. The number of people living with dementia worldwide is currently estimated at 55 million and is projected to increase to 78 million by 2030. Around 130 000 people with dementia are currently living in Austria, so there is an urgent need for action on all levels of society. One of the most important objectives of most dementia strategies is to integrate people with dementia in our society and allow them to continue taking part in public life. Police officers are very often the first group that become in contact with people suffering from dementia in a situation of crisis, and for this reason they need special training and further action to meet the needs of people with dementia. For this reason, the project ‘mission dementia’ in cooperation with the Danube University Krems and the MAS Alzheimerhilfe was initiated.
Out of the needs of the group of police officers, it soon became clear that the training programme has to be short and sustainable. On-site training for such a large number of people would have been neither economically viable nor appropriate, so the e-learning method seemed to be the perfect solution. An e-learning tool within the E-Learning Centre of the Federal Police Academy in Vienna was arranged. The result was interactive online training, which can be accessed by police officers and other officials of the ministry at any time and place. In a second step, a resolution was passed and required that an interactive knowledge check, about ‘Communicating with people with dementia’, should complete the three e-learning modules. With at least 75% of correct answers the police officer is awarded an automatically generated certificate to prove their competence in dealing with people with dementia. With the aim of making the online training more popular within the police, in a brainstorming process between the E-Learning Centre, the PR department of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the MAS Alzheimerhilfe, the idea of the ‘dementia-friendly police station’ was developed. Thanks to this certification process, the heads of police stations have the opportunity to motivate their police officers to complete the online training. Concurrently, the knowledge about dementia and about communicating with people who suffer from this disease would spread awareness within the Federal Ministry of the Interior and help to free dementia from taboos in the society.