Alzheimer’s has a hidden cost

The only thing we can be sure about when it comes to dementia is that it will touch our lives

The increase in human life expectancy, in this region and around the world, has been documented on these pages over the past week. Much of the emphasis has been on the potential benefits and other opportunities afforded to living longer. But there is a downside: as the number of people living into old age grows, so too will the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. And the sad truth is that we are ill-equipped to deal with it.

Dementia usually only hits the headlines when it affects a high-profile person, such as former American president Ronald Reagan, actor Charlton Heston, the writers Terry Pratchett and Iris Murdoch, or the Monty Python star Terry Jones, who has recently been revealed to have primary progressive aphasia, which is taking away his ability to speak. But the fact is that Alzheimer’s and related conditions affect millions of people, robbing them of many of the joys of living and presenting enormous challenges to them and their loved ones. Unlike the celebrity patients, most of these people cannot afford full-time nursing. It falls to family members to become their carers, taking those people out of the workforce and affecting their economic, physical and emotional well-being.

In societies where, through cultural change and economic necessity, traditional family units are fragmenting, so the burden also, increasingly, falls on the community and the state.

As The National has reported, decades of research have failed to discover a cure, or even a satisfactory treatment. Scientists are still struggling to understand how Alzheimer’s is acquired and how best to manage its progress. There is some hope that a vaccine may emerge, but much more study is needed. All we know for sure is that many of us will acquire some form of dementia and that the total number of cases will grow because people are living longer. Governments are struggling to respond. Much more money will have to be allocated to fund research – at the moment only $1 is spent in the US on studying the disease for every $100 spent on care – and on nursing facilities. It is one of the great challenges of this century, and it’s a matter in which we all have a stake.