Yes. At the end of June 2019, there was a session in the Chamber of Deputies to discuss public policies for treating and preventing dementia in Brazil. This might be considered progress towards perceiving and supporting people living with dementia and their carers. In this session in the Chamber of Deputies, many topics, such as stigma reduction, prevention, support for carers, day care and long-term care institutions, were discussed. At the end of the session, it was agreed that a Dementia Committee should be created including members of Parliament and the general public in order to create a National Dementia Plan. A member of the STRiDE-Brazil Steering Committee gave a talk about dementia in this session and presented the STRiDE project. The dissemination of the STRiDE project may also work changing perceptions of dementia among the population. According to the study cited in the question above (from Cleusa’s Master student), out of 87 interviewed older people, 84.7% of them would like to know the diagnosis of dementia and should then be diagnosed, and 82.1% would like to share the diagnosis with a caregiver (Opaleye et al., 2018). In addition, some Brazilian soap operas have been showing characters living with Alzheimer’s, for example “Senhora do Destino, in 2004”, “I love Paraisopolis, in 2015”, “Deus Salve o Rei, in 2018” and “Salve-se quem Puder in 2020”. Soap operas are a popular form of mass entertainment in Brazil and may reflect the growing attention given to the cause of dementia. The first approval of the National Dementia Policy by the Senate House seems to be an indicator of the process of changing perceptions in the country.

References:

Opaleye, D., Machado, D. de A., Campos, T. P., Laks, J., & Ferri, C. P. (2018). Dementia in Brazil: Preferences on diagnosis disclosure in primary care. AAIC 2018, Chicago.