Dementia in the News this Week

There has been a lot of interest in dementia in the news this week.  The Alzheimers Society started the debate with their report which says that dementia care is not getting enough funding and research into dementia falls far behind other high-profile illnesses  - in fact £12 is spent on cancer research for every £1 which goes into dementia research.  A lot of  the media picked up on this story  - on BBC IPlayer there were at least five radio programmess covering the story with many listeners calling in with their own harrowing stories of looking after someone with dementia - lack of support, information and delays in diagnosis.   All were calling for more money to go into dementia research.

Another story which made the headlines was that the incidence of dementia has been underestimated and that there are around 821,884 people who have been diagnosed with dementia which is a big increase on the 700,000 previous estimates. 15,000 of these are under the age of 65.  The total numbers of people who will be affected by dementia will reach 1m by 2021. 

The cost of dementia care has also been reported in the press.  The total cost to the economy of dementia is £23bn per year.  Every dementia patient, according to researchers from the University of Oxford, costs the economy £27,647 - nearly fives times more than a cancer patient and eight times more than someone with heart disease.   However, it is the costs met by carers and residential care, rather than the expenses of the NHS  which really pushes up the burden of dementia.   And to come a full circle, these costs bear no relation to the amount of money which is being put into funding the research into the treatment and prevention of dementia.

 World famous author, Terry Pratchet kept dementia in the news too when he gave the David Dimbleby lecture on Tuesday evening, 2 February.  His lecture was called Shaking Hands with Death explored how modern society needs to deal with terminally  ill people and how they might have a good death.  Sir Terry gave the introduction and his "stunt Terry" - aka  Balack Adder actor Tony Robinson - read the lecture.  He did an excellent job with passion and humour and you could tell that Terry heartily approved by his big beaming smile. 

It's heartening to see the subject of dementia getting such a lot of attention in the media. For too long the word "dementia" has been whispered and not openly mentioned.  It is said that dementia is where cancer was 50 years ago - but thanks to a number of high profile people living with dementia like Terry Prachett and the work of various dementia charities,  it is now being openly recognised and debated and given media time. However, without more funding into  research and treatment of dementia it still has the potential to be the timebomb which overwhelms the NHS.

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