The Dementia Timebomb

A thought-provoking article from today's Oxford Times on the 'dementia timebomb' for the county.

With a headline of 8000 people in Oxfordshire to have dementia by 2016 and a cost of £20million a year currently, it outlines some of the planing that NHS Oxforshire is undertaking. It also includes comment from a widower who had cared for his wife with dementia and his sense of the financial burden falling on them as individuals.

What is striking is how many of these 'local' articles are appearing around the UK, around Europe, in the US, in India, in South Korea and so on - wherever there is an ageing demographic and a growing demand for support for the increased incidence of dementia which is the unfortunate corollary of a population living longer.

A common theme is a growing recognition that the great unsaids about dementia care need to come out into the open - how little attention is paid to diagnosis, the unreasonable and unbearable burden placed on family carers both emotionally, practically and financially, the provision of mostly poor or inappropriate care for people with dementia, the need for financial support to local health bodies (although with the caveat that they should have targets for spending this to ensure the finances are actually spent on dementia care.....) etc etc.

While these remain localised and atomised articles, very little pressure will be placed on national governments to deal with this professionally and startegically. There is also a whole host of research modeling the costs of informal and formal care for dementia and showing how much of this burden is borne by the individual and their families unlike for other terminal illnesses. None of this ses to be joined up in media and political discussion.

It is time to pull the curtain away from this charade and to make real plans which are sustainable both financially and socially. we need to move from the rhetoric of 'cost-saving' which actually encourages short-term thinking to long-term evidence-based planning which sees this issue for what it is - a major challenge for our various societies not just in the future but now....