Today is World Alzheimer’s Day.
Currently, an estimated 47 million people worldwide are living with dementia. Alzheimer’s
is a global problem, and researchers around the world are working diligently to
find a cure.
We already know that Alzheimer’s is the most expensive
disease in America. It also has a devastating economic impact worldwide with a cost
of $818 billion. Healthcare for persons with dementia are too specialized which
increases the cost.
According to the World Alzheimer’s Report, “Currently,
healthcare systems struggle to provide adequate coverage of diagnostic
services, and care is too often fragmented, uncoordinated, and unresponsive to
the needs of people with dementia and their families.”
A better approach, according to the
report, would be to rebalance the services to primary and community with case
management. Case management could be more effective if (a) caseloads were manageable,
(b) clearly defined with training and adequate preparation and (c) the case
manager would be empowered to coordinate care among providers.
This sounds like the purpose of the
HOPE for Alzheimer’s Act!
We are looking forward to a world
without Alzheimer’s, but until then, the report rightly observes, palliative
and hospice care needs to be improved for those with dementia. It is important
to consider preferences of people with dementia about end-of-life issues.
Only 40 – 50% of people with
dementia have received a diagnosis. The executive summary of the report concludes
with, “We need to focus on achieving high coverage of dementia diagnosis and
continuing care, both to ensure access to current evidence-based treatments and
support, and to create systems and platforms with the capacity to deliver, with
equity, much more effective treatments in the future.”
On World Alzheimer’s Day 2016,
advocates will continue in their efforts to increase research funding. Caregivers
will continue to care for their loved ones. Hospice teams will help families
face the inevitable end of this incurable disease. Families will pick up the
pieces and go on living without fathers, mothers, spouses, siblings, aunts,
uncles, friends, or even children who die from dementia.
Resource:
World Alzheimer’s Report: https://www.alz.co.uk/research/WorldAlzheimerReport2016.pdf
Copyright © September 2016 by L.S.
Fisher
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