Each January, the Alzheimer Society supports and leads Canada’s Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.
During this month, the Society encourages organizations across Canada, and individuals like you, to learn more about dementia and its stark impact on Canadians.
By understanding what people living with dementia experience in their day-to-day lives – their struggles, their successes, and their hopes – together we can raise awareness of dementia throughout Canada.
Awareness is the first step to fighting stigma, reinforcing human rights , and pushing for policy change, as well as other actions that can lift up Canadians living with dementia.
Please support Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. It’s an easy start to helping your fellow Canadians who are living with this serious disease.
Five ways you can support Alzheimer’s Awareness in 2022
1. Support this year’s campaign
Help spread the word! You can download the Community Toolkit for this year’s Alzheimer Awareness Month, highlighting First Link®. It has all the information you need to support Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, including the suggested text for posting about the campaign on social media and accompanying images.
2. Connect with your local Society
Find out what’s going on at your local Alzheimer Society, including how your Society is helping your community and how you can get involved.
Visit alzheimer.ca/Find to get connected to your closest Society in a few short clicks!
3. Learn more about dementia
Learning more about dementia through the Alzheimer Society’s many resources can help someone identify the warning signs of dementia and get them an early diagnosis, leading to that person getting the help and support they need earlier.
A little learning can make all the difference in helping someone live as well with dementia as possible.
4. Listen to the stories of people with lived experience
The best way to understand the impact of dementia, and the need for further help and support, is to hear directly from people with lived experience of it.
Over the next little while, the Alzheimer Society will be publishing more stories from people living with dementia, caregivers and researchers alike. We encourage you to read and share them among people you know. Perhaps there is someone who will want to share their story as well!
5. Support our other initiatives to raise awareness
- Besides Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, the Alzheimer Society also supports people living with dementia assert their rights and fight stigma through the Canadian Charter of Rights for People with Dementia.
- We work to change the lives of those living with dementia. However, we need to do more to combat systemic oppression. Here is how we are changing on the issue of race and dementia.
- The Alzheimer Society of Canada believes people with dementia should have a voice in the work that impacts them. We want to bring people from all over the country together to be part of the conversation by becoming a member of our Advisory Group of people living with dementia.
- We also support the implementation of Canada’s first-ever national dementia strategy that can systemically reduce stigma against dementia in Canada.
- We’re committed to taking a person-first approach to the Dementia-Friendly Canada project to ensure all Canadians living with dementia feel valued and empowered, that organizations be inclusive and accessible and that everyone uses their awareness of dementia to make changes, individually and as a society.