Assessment and Staging of Care for People with Dementia: The IDEAL Schedule and its User Manual

Assessment and Staging of Care for Dementia: The IDEAL schedule and its user manual is a unique resource containing a global clinical staging schedule for dementia alongside essential, practical information on how to use it.

The International Schedule for the Integrated Assessment and Staging of Care for Dementia (IDEAL) schedule assesses a patient's capacity to function in seven domains. These domains are 'activities of daily living', 'physical health', 'cognitive functioning', 'behavioural and psychological symptoms', 'social support', 'informal care', and 'formal professional care'. Each domain has a set of anchor points to assist with rating the different dimensions appropriately along with critical information on how to calculate the total sum score on the IDEAL schedule.

In addition to the IDEAL schedule itself, this resource includes a glossary of key terms and guidance on recommended priorities for interventions for different symptoms and severity patterns. Global examples of how to apply the schedule based on different levels of resources and experience are also presented along with relatable case studies mapped directly to the schedule.

Created by the International Dementia Alliance, this innovative tool and user manual is suitable for health care professionals with experience in the diagnosis and treatment of people with dementia around the world, as well as any of those involved in dementia care.

Dr Maya Semrau currently works at the Brighton & Sussex Medical School as a research fellow in implementation research on the EnDPoINT project in Ethiopia as part of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Neglected Tropical Diseases. She has also been affiliated with King's College London (KCL) since 2007, where she has worked on several global mental health projects, including a PhD on needs assessment and mental health in humanitarian emergencies, the Emerald programme on mental health system strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, and the INDIGO-LOCAL project on the reduction of mental-health-related stigma and discrimination. She has been part of the IDEAL steering committee since 2011. She has a BSc honours from the University of Sussex (UoS), and one MSc each from UoS and KCL.

Professor Alistair Burns is Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at The University of Manchester and an Honorary Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist in the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. He is the National Clinical Director for Dementia and Older People's Mental Health at NHS England and NHS Improvement.

He graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1980, training in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry in London. He became the Foundation Chair of Old Age Psychiatry in The University of Manchester in 1992, where he has variously been Head of the Division of Psychiatry and a Vice Dean in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, with responsibility for liaison within the NHS. He set up the Memory Clinic in Manchester and helped establish the old age liaison psychiatry service at Wythenshawe Hospital. He is a Past President of the International Psychogeriatric Association.


Professor Antonio Lobo is emeritus Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry; Chief Psychiatrist, University Hospital, Zaragoza. Spain
He is a Visiting Professor of Johns Hopkins University; Iowa University. He is Principal Investigator in Spain EU BIOMED Projects in Psychogeriatrics EURODEM (Dementia); EURODEP (Depression) as well as National Coordinator of Research Networks (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), and Member of Scientific Councils: Instituto de Salud Carlos III, National Specialty of Psychiatry. He is on the editorial board for International Psychogeriatric journals and is Editor-in-Chief for European Journal of Psychiatry.


Professor Marcel Olde Rikkert is Principal Investigator at the Nijmegen Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences, Principal Lecturer, and Principal Clinician of the Radboudumc. He is currently focussing on personalised complex interventions in dementia research and in resilience in older persons. Olde Rikkert published over 300 peer reviewed papers, several monographs, and supervised over 35 PhDs.

Professor Philippe Robert is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, Director of the Cognition Team, Behavior & Technology (CoBTeK-lab), Co Director of the Memory Center for Resources and Research (CMRR) of the University Hospital of Nice, and president of the association IA (Innovation Alzheimer - Affect - Autism). His areas of expertise include behavioral and psychological symptoms, evaluation and treatment of apathy, and the use of new technologies for diagnosis and stimulation in neuropsychiatric pathologies.

Dr Mirjam Schepens completed her medical training at Maastricht University. After this, she specialized in geriatric medicine in Tilburg and Nijmegen. During her specialisation, she spend 6 months at the Memory Clinic of Mercer's Institute for Successful Ageing at St. James's Hospital in Dublin, where she conducted amongst others a validation study of the IDEAL schedule. She currently works as a geriatrician at St. Anna Hospital in Geldrop.

Professor Gabriela Stoppe is the Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at the Medical Faculty in the University of Basel and Founder and Director of MentAge GmbH.

Professor Norman Sartorius was the Director of the Division of Mental of the World Health Organization for more than twenty years and subsequently served as the President of the World Psychiatric Association and of the European Psychiatric Association. He holds professorial positions at several universities in Europe, the USA and China and was the principal investigator of major international studies on schizophrenia, on depressive disorders and on mental health services. He published more than 400 articles in peer reviewed journals and authored or edited more than 80 books. He is now the President of Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programs, a nongovernmental organization located in Geneva.