Light bulb moment needed!

A rich tapestry of knowledge and expertise will help to fill current gaps in dementia research, when a range of Australians from varied walks of life contribute their thoughts about the disease at the Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria Think Tank later this month. 

In a bid to push research boundaries and think outside the formal box, Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria has coordinated a group of diverse professionals to dream up the ideal health system of the future and to contribute their opinion on how to best meet the challenge of dementia. 

The attendee list includes emergency service workers, a banker, lawyer, university student, information technology professional, dementia care worker, commercial donor, psychiatrist, marketer, community care worker, retailer, real estate agent and more.

“Will you join with others to stretch your mind for dementia?” the invitation said. “You don’t need to know about dementia. You do need to be willing to dream with others.”

General manager of strategic initiatives, Jack Sach, said that the ideas received during the think tank will be used to formulate the organisation’s strategic direction for the next three years.

“The idea behind the event was to put together a group of people who don’t necessarily have a lot of direct knowledge of dementia- some will and some won’t,” Mr Sach said.

“It will include people of all ages and from all walks of life.

“What we are looking for from this event is an opportunity for us to break out of a conventional way of thinking, and to develop ideas about what we might [adopt] as an organisation and a community to best meet the dementia challenge.”

Alzheimer’s Australia Victoria will hold the event in Hawthorn on Monday 29 November.

“We are hoping to get a few light bulb moments –ideas that those working in the service sector wouldn’t have normally thought about.

“The thing that we’ve learnt is that if you really want good ideas, you go to consumers. This is the traditional way of getting real thinking going on about the subject. But I think that people who come into the field uninitiated can produce a lot of good ideas.

“It will certainly freshen our thinking.”