Participants in a national research summit have recommended nearly 700 new strategies for understanding dementia, working toward a cure and supporting people who have it.

Next steps are included in a report to the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services and divided into a dozen categories aimed at caregivers and researchers. The goal of the HHS-convened summit was to advance scientific priorities for research on persons with dementia and their families.

The findings, updated online Wednesday, summarize last year’s National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and their Caregivers held at the National Institutes of Health.

“The National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) creates an important opportunity to build upon and leverage HHS programs and other federal efforts to help change the trajectory of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” authors reported. “This is necessary in order to propel innovation and advancement in the area of clinical care and services, and to develop recommendations that can be used by federal agencies, non-federal organizations, and research institutes to improve their work.”

Specific ideas to accelerate the development, evaluation, translation, implementation, and scaling up of comprehensive care and supports were broken out into 12 themes ranging from disease stages to settings of care to training and workforce issues.

One theme explores in-depth various comprehensive models of care for persons living with dementia. Summit participants recommended evaluating and compare the effectiveness of those models to determine which best reduce patient frustration and negative health outcomes.