April, 2023
In March 2023, Eisai staff provided a dementia awareness class to third-year students at Daiichi Junior High School in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo.
Eisai and Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, where Eisai’s Head Office is located, concluded a “Community Building Partnership Agreement to Promote Local Dementia Support Initiatives for Dementia Patients and Their Families” in June 2015. Eisai is engaging in a variety of efforts, including the dementia examination project and disease awareness activities for dementia, to build a community that is easy for people with dementia to live in.
In addition, since fiscal 2021, we have been conducting dementia awareness classes for junior high school students, who will support the community in the future, to help them understand dementia correctly and learn how to interact appropriately with people affected by dementia in Japan's aging society. Eisai started conducting awareness classes after some of our employees watched a movie about people living with dementia as part of their hhc activities, and became acutely aware of the lack of understanding in society regarding the disease.
In the class, we used a dementia awareness video and textbook developed by Eisai for junior and senior high school students to encourage students to think about how people with dementia feel and how to interact with them appropriately.
Staff also introduced early-onset dementia, which develops in people under 65 years of age and is less socially recognized than dementia in the elderly, helping the students understand that dementia is a problem that is relevant to us all.
Eisai included this content in the class after learning through past dialogues with people living with early-onset dementia and their families that they would like Eisai to be actively involved in disseminating information to help create a society where people can live with peace of mind even if they are living early-onset dementia.
At the end of the class, students asked many questions about the types and symptoms of dementia, what people around them can do to help people living with dementia, causes of dementia and how to prevent it, and whether animals also suffer from dementia.
They also expressed their encouraging aspirations, such as wanting to consider the feelings of people with dementia and respond appropriately based on what they had learned through the class, and living from now on with an awareness of a community where everyone supports and cooperates with each other, rather than by themself. Students also offered messages of support, such as hoping Eisai will continue to work on hhc, and that one day Eisai will create a cure for dementia.
Under the hhc Concept, Eisai will further strengthen its partnership with Bunkyo Ward and other local communities, continuing to contribute to build communities where people with dementia and their families can live safely and securely.