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Overall ranking Table 12 shows the rank each country was able to achieve in each of the ten categories. As can be seen from table 12, different countries excelled in different categories. 13 different countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Spain and the UK- both England and Scotland) came first in at least one of the 10 categories. Three countries however excelled and could score first place in three different categories: • Finland came first in care availability, care affordability and in the number of international conventions ratified. • Ireland came first in the treatment, dementia as a priority and employment right categories. • The United Kingdom (England) came first in the categories treatment, dementia friendliness and legal rights. In order to calculate the overall ranking of countries, we based the global score on a combined score of the ten different categories with each contributing m% to the overall score. This score is presented as a percentage of the over-all maximum score which countries could have achieved and leads to the following ranking as shown in figure 13. According to the overall ranking, Finland, the United Kingdom (England) and the Netherlands were the countries which had the most dementia-friendly policies in place, with Albania, Latvia and Bosnia and Herzegovina being the countries which need to make the most progress and reforms to improve the lives of people with dementia in their countries. When looking at the map of Europe (see map 5 below), we can see that there are significant differences across Europe with countries in Northern and Central Europe generally scoring much better than countries in Southern Europe.

The consequences of dementia, for both patients and primary caregivers, are formidable. Primary caregivers are often overburdened or are signifcantly at risk for becoming overburdened How do we meet this substantial and complex social challenge, which is as yet insuffciently recognized? We must start looking for new forms of care and support, for more goal-oriented care while maintaining humane values. The problem of dementia demands that we follow more leads: new treatments and interventional care, greater use of technology, new divisions of labour among professionals and more empowerment of primary care. At issue is the organization of physical and social environments for patients with dementia that closely meet their needs. The road toward this goal is long and complicated, but a start has been made in the Netherlands.