dementia

It used to be TB. Then it was cancer. Now it's dementia - the disease that dare not speak its name. Hearing it, an erstwhile friend will make an excuse and cross the street. Your mobile will be silent, the number of texts will fall off. Yes, that's right, you've become an outcast. You have,or are caring for, dementia - just slightly, perhaps, forgetting where the car was parked, someone's name, what day it is.
Odd you should have become such an outsider, along with your nearest and dearest. Because in every three people around you in the population, one is going to develop dementia, a big proportion of them with Alzheimer's.
Just before Christmas last year, a TV ad told people to check when they were visiting their families and to suggest a visit to the G.P. if they found any of them had memory loss. It brought a rather disconcerting vision. "Oh, I forgot to switch on the oven for the turkey," - "Then you'd better see the doctor."
A visit to the G.P.? Last time I spoke to my former G.P. now retired, about dementia, she shrugged and said "Well, nothing can be done about that." That's probably the attitude of most G.P.'s, though they would be unlikely to admit it. Patients are sent on to one of the many "memory clinics" which have been founded recently. But once out of the clinic, there is nowhere for most sufferers to go. There are often effective drugs for Alzheimer's, but that needs expert knowledge for correct prescription, not easy to find. Otherwise, there is little or no help except for the very poor or the rich - the poor will get a few hours help at home each week, the rich will be able to hire it. The rest? The limit on help is over £22,5oo in assets, not income. That is why most have to sell the homes they don't want to leave and go into a care home - if they can find one to take them. The scientists want early diagnosis so that the appropriate tests can be carried out but that doesn't mean to say that those diagnoses will get early treatment.
Yet the disease is at the bottom of the pile for research money, even though the prospect for finding cures is now bright. Dementia is the poor relation, even though it costs the UK twice as much as cancer, three times as much as heart disease and four times as much as stroke. For every £ spent on dementia research, £26 are spent on cancer research and £15 on heart disease research. These figures are given by Paul Burstow, LibDem M.P, the political leader in putting the case for better funding for dementia research.
The good news is that he has now become a member of the coalition Government, as Minister of State for Care Services, so now there is more hope of government support for the already strong case for increased research funding.
Young scientists have to be attracted into dementia research and that can only be done by raising the profile of the disease, as well as the money. We have to start talking about it. Once cancer, before the cures started, was unmentionable and people would hide the fact that they had it. Long ago, having TB could turn you into a social outcast, apparently coming from a poor and unhygienic home - until they found out that it was simply an infection, picked up from human contact or infected cow's milk.
J. Adrian Watney, chairman of Alzheimer's Research UK, says they are doubling their efforts to defeat dementia by investing in the most promising research. And the good news, needed for so long, is that they have seen a record-breaking year with the highest ever income of £8.2m.
They are one of the world's top three charity funders of dementia reseach. "Dementia can be beaten. We WILL find a cure," he saya. But, for that, they need funding for scientific breakthroughs, from the public as well as the government.
There is now cross-Europe sharing of information and research results and a Ministerial Advisory Group for Dementia Research, which will next meet in summer this year, as well as a funders' forum with leading charities and Government funders (the Medical Research Council and Department of Health)working together for the many pioneering research projects on what they call "our greatest medical challenge." And it certainly is that.
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