In 2016, DKI Jakarta Provincial Government (Pemprov) in collaboration with ALZI inaugurated the Purple Troops to realise a dementia-friendly and age friendly city of Jakarta. For the first phase, 200 members of the Purple Troop consisted of doctors, nurses, cadres from the DKI Health Service, Social Service, Supervision and Control (P3S) officers from the Jakarta Social Service, and ALZI volunteers. The creation of the Purple Troops (Pasukan Ungu) is hoped to help make Jakarta a dementia-friendly and age-friendly capital. According to the Assistant Secretary for the People’s Welfare Fatahillah, there were 481 doctors under the DKI Health Service attending a workshop on dementia screening in the Purple Troops training in 2016 (Jakarta Resmikan Pasukan Ungu Bantu Penderita Demensia, 2016).

The Purple Troops are trained to check signs of dementia, promote awareness, engage in preventive efforts and public education among the citizens of Jakarta citizens to educate about dementia-friendly environments. The DKI Jakarta Health Office has mobilized the Knock of the Door with Heart Service (KPLDH) consisting of teams of doctors, midwives, and nurses to deal with issues around dementia. KPLDH team together with community cadres such as PKK or Jumantik, go from house to house to collect information on people affected by dementia. Currently the team is focusing on slums, densely populated, flats, and lower middle-class areas. The KPLDH team received training from Indonesian Alzheimer’s Foundation on methods for screening dementia symptoms (Priherdityo, 2016). However, since the responsible Governor for this program lost his position, it is unclear if the program is still ongoing.

References:

Jakarta Resmikan Pasukan Ungu Bantu Penderita Demensia. (2016). BeritaSatu. https://www.beritasatu.com/kesehatan/387342/jakarta-resmikan-pasukan-ungu-bantu-penderita-demensia

Priherdityo, E. (2016). Perawat Demensia Rentan Jadi “Pasien Kedua.”

Despite requests made to the Mental Health Unit at the Ministry of Health and Wellness as well as to the Medical Association of Jamaica, no data has been sourced for this question.

In Kenya, mental health training/courses for the health and social workforce do not specifically focus on competencies around dementia. Some training includes components that focus on communication skills and different forms of psychotherapies, particularly in training for psychologists (University of Nairobi, 2019). Furthermore, visiting a residential home or an organization providing care to people with dementia is not included in practicums, electives, or community health programmes, unless a person makes special arrangement outside school requirements to visit such homes or institutions. In some universities, students are given an opportunity to select the organization they would like to work with during the attachment or internship. It is in such cases that students make requests to organizations to apply for internship opportunities. However, it is not clear how many approach institutions dealing with dementia care.

References:

University of Nairobi. (2019). Department of Psychology. https://psychology.uonbi.ac.ke

It is unclear from a desk review of medical school and related curricula whether dementia is included in undergraduate or graduate training, residencies, etc. However, gerontology was removed by the South African Nursing Council (SANC) from its specialist training curriculum (Lloyd-Sherlock, 2019a), and despite being urged by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to reconsider this decision (SAHRC, 2015), this topic has not been restored to nursing curricula.

The NGO sector provides dementia care training predominantly to carers, where facilities pay organisations to train care-staff to provide care for persons living with dementia and support families of persons living with dementia. It is unclear to what extent this training reaches beyond non-pharmacological approaches to caring for persons living with dementia.

References:

Lloyd-Sherlock, P. (2019a). Long-term Care for Older People in South Africa: The Enduring Legacies of Apartheid and HIV/AIDS. Journal of Social Policy, 48(1), 147–167. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279418000326

SAHRC. (2015). Investigative Hearing Report: Investigating hearing into systemic complaints relating to the treatment of Older Persons. Available from: http://www.sahrc.org.za/construction-site/home/21/files/SAHRC Investigative hearing report.pdf