Barcelona City Council says it is opening four memory units in Gràcia for people in the early stages of cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s disease. The services will offer 60 places across the four units each year, and patients can access them only through a medical referral from their primary care centre.
The units are at CAP Vallcarca, CAP Vila de Gràcia – Cibeles and CAP Larrard, which will host two units. For Gràcia residents and carers, the route into the programme is to discuss a referral with their primary-care team at their usual CAP, the public local health centre.
According to information from the Ajuntament de Barcelona press service, the sessions began in September and are scheduled to continue until June 2027. The announcement coincides with World Alzheimer’s Day, which falls on Monday 21 September.
“The aim is to support people in an early stage of the disease and, as far as possible, delay its progression,” said Laia Bonet, Barcelona’s first deputy mayor and the councillor responsible for Gràcia.
Weekly sessions at three Gràcia health centres
Each unit has capacity for 15 annual places. The four new services bring Barcelona’s network to nine units, with capacity for up to 165 people a year, the City Council says.
- CAP Vallcarca: one memory unit.
- CAP Vila de Gràcia – Cibeles: one memory unit.
- CAP Larrard: two memory units.
Participants attend a 90-minute session each week. The programme combines individual and group activities adapted to each person, working on orientation, memory, language, calculation, perception, attention, reasoning and executive functioning.
People seeking a place should contact their own primary-care team to ask whether a medical referral to one of the Gràcia units is appropriate.
Primary sources: Ajuntament de Barcelona. Reported by betevé.
