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People with dementia and their caregivers regularly face unmet needs, not only in dementia care, but also in self-care, education, training, and the use of digital tools. National dementia policies, clinical guidelines, and best practices can improve dementia care and quality of life across Europe. This study examined how far current national guidelines and good practices address these domains, and where important gaps remain. The objective was to identify unmet needs in national guidelines and good practices on self-care, education and training, and digital tools for people with dementia and their caregivers.

We conducted a cross-country comparative analysis in countries participating in the JADE Health collaboration: Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, and Ukraine. Country partners provided national and regional dementia guidelines and descriptions of good practices, which were systematically reviewed and compared against selected best practices from the EU Best Practice Portal, focusing on alignment and gaps in the three domains.

We found substantial variation between countries in the maturity, scope, and implementation of dementia guidelines and good practices. Some countries, such as Denmark and Germany, have relatively advanced policy frameworks and clinical guidance, while others, such as Croatia, rely on promising but regionally limited programs, and several, including Bulgaria and Latvia, still depend on fragmented services. Across all countries, integrated approaches that combine structured self-care support, systematic education and training, and scalable digital tools were rare.

Best practices explicitly addressing self-care, education and training, and digital tools remain limited and unevenly implemented. Strengthening and disseminating such practices is essential to guide the further development of dementia care across Europe and to reduce persistent unmet needs among people with dementia and their caregivers.