In 2002, a special issue on the notion of cross-cultural perspectives on the experiences and interpretation of dementia was published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 17(3), where it was argued that whatever a disease such as dementia is, it is multidimensional and that there is a need for understanding dementia more as an experience than simply a biological fact. The argument presented was that dementia needed to be de-medicalized because this would make it easier to extend the analysis of dementia models, and thus social and cultural factors such as recognition of symptoms, help-seeking strategies, caregiving, and coping could become more apparent.Since then, several researchers have argued along the same line, that it is of immense importance that persons with dementia diseases be understood not only as isolated-sick-individuals with nonfunctioning brains, but rather as persons who belong to a social context, where one interacts with other people. We have thus seen a shiftin (some) research concerning the sociocultural research regarding dementia, away from the definitions of a disease process, toward a more in-depth understanding of the fact that a person with dementia is just that, a person, who lives in close relations to others and engage in interactions with the people around them.Still however, in cases when social context have been taken into account, it has often been regarded as the immediate, personal, surroundings of the person living with dementia, giving the illusion of dementia as occurring in a vacuum. In other words, there has been a tendency to ignore the importance of larger sociocultural contexts, such as values, norms, and beliefs. This is problematic, because as different ethnocultural groups ascribe different meanings to the illness, this will affect not only how a person living with Alzheimer's or other dementias is perceived, and what status is afforded to the ill person, but also if one is inclined to use formal services or not.Some of the authors of this special issue on ethnocultural contextualization of dementia care were part of that first special edition on cross-cultural perspectives on the experiences and interpretation of dementia in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology back in 2002. Now they, among several other researchers on the subject at hand, have joined together in an international research network called Different Dementias1 to push research forward, collaborating and discussing issues regarding cross-cultural perceptions of dementia and how the notion of care needs to be understood in relation to such perceptions. …