In future, more and more people with dementia

According to the World Alzheimer Report, the number of dementia patients will triple by 2050

20/09/2013

Worldwide, the number of people suffering from dementia has already increased significantly in the past. According to the World Alzheimer Report 2013, it is expected that by the year 2050 there will be around 115 million people worldwide. However, according to the authors of the report, no country has yet met the high standards of care and care for dementia.

Dementia becomes one of the biggest challenges of this century
„Worldwide, 13 percent of people aged 60 years or older need long-term care. Between 2010 and 2050, the total number of elderly people with need for care will almost triple from 101 to 277 million“, the World Alzheimer Report states. For the most part, long-term care concerns people with dementia like Alzheimer's. Their number is therefore expected to rise to 115 million by the middle of the century. That would be more people than today in Mexico, which is one of the 15 most populous countries in the world. An unimaginable high number of people in need of care, for whom there is not nearly enough provision, and a challenge to the health systems, which all countries worldwide have to face.

According to the report, around 35 million people worldwide are currently suffering from Alzheimer's disease or any other form of dementia. In Germany, around 1.4 million are affected. According to the German Alzheimer Society, there will be three million dementia by 2050, of which one third is over 90 years old. It is expected that around half of all people in need of care will become ill as they get older. About 80 percent of the residents of old people's and nursing homes are affected by this, write the authors of the report. In Germany, about 60 percent of people in nursing homes suffer from dementia.

„Dementia clearly has enormous socio-economic impact worldwide. It's hard to predict such a large sum“, the World Alzheimer Report states. There are currently costs of $ 604 trillion related to dementia. „If dementia were a country, it would rank 18th in the world in terms of the strongest economies, ranking between Turkey and Indonesia. If dementia were a company, it would rank among the largest in the world in terms of annual names, outperforming Wal-Mart (414 trillion US Dolar) and Exxon Mobile (311 trillion US dollars)“, Professor Martin Prince of London University King's College and his team write in the World Alzheimer Report.

Dementians and relatives need more support
Listening to dementia sufferers are often overstrained with care. The authors therefore demand more support for relatives and better pay for professional carers in the World Alzheimer Report. „Today, two-thirds of family calls are in crisis, "explains Roger Baumgart, managing director of a care provider in the UK, to the news agency „dpa“.

Even in Germany, the supply of outpatient care services, nursing home care or alternative care services such as shared apartments must be significantly increased, also calls Hans-Jürgen Freter, spokesman for the Alzheimer's Society, in an interview with the news agency. „Two-thirds of dementia patients are still cared for at home. It will not continue like that, "says the expert. „In the future, there will be fewer children who can take care of themselves. And there are more older singles. "Above all, the municipalities are required to deal adequately with dementia patients.

No adequate care for dementia patients
Professor Hans Gutzmann, president of the German geriatric psychiatrists, sees in the care of dementia patients large defects. So far, the policy considered Alzheimer's and other dementia diseases primarily as a nursing problem. This results in a separation of health and long-term care insurance, which would lead to dementia patients are not adequately supplied in accordance with the international standard in Germany. It would not make sense for a health insurance company from a business perspective to pay for a therapy, but the nursing care fund would have the financial benefit of it, as the costs of nursing care would only be incurred later on. Therefore, what would be useful for the patient, left undone.

It would have to find medicines, non-drug therapies and nursing measures in a therapeutic overall concept application, the German Alzheimer's Society demands. This could cause a slowing of the disease, so that those affected could lead a self-determined life longer in dignity. In addition, the cost of housing in the nursing home, which could be achieved at a later date, thanks to such an overall therapeutic concept, would be reduced. (Ag)