Over the past ten years, Tomas Leon – a geropsychiatrist working at the Hospital del Salvador (Chile) – has worked in several teams, both as a leader and as a member, to improve older people's mental health, people living with dementia, and their caregivers, focusing mainly on Chile and Latin America. He has participated in producing several books, articles and training programs for primary care on dementia and old age mental health, even creating free and open access programs for medical and non-medical professionals. Tomas Leon has also participated in open community talks about dementia, ageism and old age mental health, and even written children's books about dementia to raise awareness and better explain dementia. He was also instrumental in creating the first old age mental health task force and participated in support groups for relatives of people living with dementia. From a political point of view, Tomas Leon has participated in development of Chile’s national dementia plan and several worktables on mental health in older age.
Tomas Leon has already extensively innovated for healthy ageing in the area of mental health, but he is already working on the next big project: the creation of "Preparadamente", a 24/7, free online course on dementia for health care professionals. In Chile, the current public policy on dementia care is based on a primary care team (PCT) model. PCTs are responsible for the screening, diagnosis and treatment of most cases and should only refer to the more complex and atypical cases for specialist assessment. However, the current level of confidence and knowledge about dementia within PCTs is low, with no current training schemes available through the Ministry of Health. Frequency and accessibility of training opportunities have been raised as one the most relevant reasons to explain poor knowledge about dementia in PCTs, and the development of a freely available online course is poised to address a major gap.
Tomas Leon’s work and leadership demonstrates many things: for example, the importance of involving people of all generations in any effort to foster and promote healthy ageing, and the sustainability and effectiveness of solutions that are developed by and created for the multiple stakeholder groups involved in providing care for older people living with dementia. Mental health continues to be a key aspect to address in any effort to transform the world to be a better place to grow older – and the Decade’s call for joined up, multisectoral responses equally applies to this area of work.