Re-framing societal perception of neurodegenerative diseases for comfortable ageing

Introduction: Different historical ways exist how societies perceive, define, name, and categorize neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), nevertheless, age-associated progressive diseases were always a part of human experience. Today, with neuroscience progression and emerging new technologies, we understand many NDDs as an interplay of genetic susceptibility and environmental risk factors. Still, shaping health-oriented behaviours in the population is a challenge. Also, in western culture where family ties are weak, getting old and frail is not treasured, and media predominantly focus on the disease's late to terminal stages and societal burden. Thus, age-related NDDs stigma persists and NDDs are reported to be among the most feared condition. Later mentioned can be viewed as an issue of framing NDDs societal perception in some cultures. Frames are tools that are used in communication to decide which elements are selected and need a central position to present an issue as comprehensible as possible to a diversity of audiences. Moreover, framing not only contributes to defining a certain problem but also implies the existence of alternative counter-frames. In our societies, we can observe that NDDs problematizing frames are dominant in common public discourse and alternative frames are used less often. As problematizing frames related stigma can have detrimental effect on health and wellbeing of individuals, reframing and de-problematisation may be essential to achieve a positive change in perceptions and attitudes towards ageing and accompanied challenges in our society. Content: We have designed the Pilot 7 M&M (Mind and Mouth): Social learning interventions with lifestyle adaptations for people with cognitive decline, within the vision to facilitate care services providers to design and deploy personalized, integrated care prevention and intervention measures, but also to provide the means and tools for the empowerment and enhancement of all stakeholders' health and digital literacy to further reduce health inequalities in modern communities and as support to healthy and active age-living (COMFORTage project funded by the EU, HORIZON-HLTH-2023-STAYHLTH-01-01). This pilot will take place in Slovenia and we put in the centre each individual as an expert of his/her experience. Daily habits are often made up of a chain of actions and thoughts and by focusing on small daily actions, we are co-creating the tools for health and wellbeing maintenance for individuals. The approach is based on interdisciplinary team work and combines healthcare, neuroscience, psychology, social sciences, and information communication technology (ICT) support to tackle NDDs and prevention from multiple angles. As mentioned, vulnerability to NDD is a complex