Today, the Deputy Protector of Citizens, Ms. Jelena Stojanović, visited the Day Care for people with initial and mid-stage dementia in New Belgrade and talked to service beneficiaries, their relatives - informal caregivers about local importance of this type of psychological support.
Stojanović talked with Ms. Nada Satarić, the Chair of the association "Snaga Prijateljstva - Amity" in the Day Care for People with Dementia about the necessity of these types of services in the community and the ways in which local governments can develop them, as well as about Serbian Association for Alzheimer's Disease establishment, which provides support to patients and their relatives.
The Day Care in New Belgrade has been recently opened as a pilot project of the association "Snaga Prijateljstva - Amity", which engages in increasing the availability of social welfare services, with the support of the Ministry of Family Welfare and Demography, and it is open on Thursdays from 4 to 7 pm for patients with initial or mid-stage dementia who live in Belgrade.
The Deputy Protector of Citizens was informed by relatives - informal caregivers of the patients who were present in the Day Care for patients with dementia that psychological support and identification of the same condition in other beneficiaries, as well as occupational therapy significantly improved broken self-confidence of patients and led to a great improvement in their condition. They also told her that the time beneficiaries spent in their stay was practically the time that informal caregivers could use to do some errands or simply take a break from the daily stress they were exposed to.