Public Health Class of 1960 Scholar: Forgotten Quality of Life - Public Health, Dementia and Palliative Care

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are a major public health problem. There are three main ways to address this problem: preventing it, curing it, or the often-forgotten third element: improving the experience of living with dementia. I argue that principles from palliative care will help develop evidence-based methods to reduce suffering and improve quality of life for people impacted by dementia. I present findings from my own research, which uses multiple types of methods to address population-level evidence gaps and develop interventions to improve clinical practice, systems, and policy for people with dementia and their families.