Dementia care not receiving enough funding
Although Dementia now costs the UK economy twice as much as cancer it still only receives a fraction of the funding.
The Alzheimer’s Research Trust has said that for every one pound that is spent on dementia research, 12 times that goes to investigating cancer.
Researchers from Oxford University have compared the cost of caring for a person with dementia to the cost of dealing with cancer, heart disease or stroke, which as it stands are the three biggest causes of death in the U.K. They took into account everything from immediate health care expenses right through to the cost of social care and unpaid carers.
After analysing all of the above it was found that each dementia patient costs the economy £27,647 each year, this is almost five times higher than a cancer patient and eight times higher than those with heart disease.
Cancer research funding is 12 times that of dementia funding and it has been calculated that for every person with cancer £295 is spent on research compared with just £61 for each person with dementia.
Now is the time to bridge that gap and raise awareness about dementia. People tend to think of dementia as something that strikes during old age and this could be why they are more reluctant to donate to a charity devoted to the illness
Care Services Minister Phil Hope has said that next year will see a huge investment of £1bn in health research. Not only that but a new National Clinical Directory for Dementia has also been recently appointed and he hopes to drive research into the cause, cure and care as well as helping researchers to access more funding.
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