Dementia, Publich Health And Public Policy, Making The
Connection
Ø Introduction
Public health and dementia have,
until recently, rarely been found sharing the same bed either in academic
journal or in policy discourse. This party reflects the low profile that
dementia has had policy debates but even ehen it has failen under the
spotlight, the focus has been on it as a neuorological condition and the
priority has been to find effective treatments or cure.
In the last 10 years, howevere, the
landscape has canged significantly and he profile of dementia has risen
dramaticaly in policy, research and practice terms. Although the liink with
public health is still relatively week a significant development took place in
2014 which perhaps signal a change on that front.
Ø Dementia
Dementia is an umbrella ter for a variety of organic condition in that
affect the brain. Commoon symptoms are loss of memory, cognitive impairments,
deterioration in motor skills and executive function, confusion, and delucions.
It is a progressive and terminal condition and there is curently no cure or
universally effective treatment. An estimated 800,000 people in the UK are
believed to have some form of dementia, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s
disease, affecting arround 62% of people with dementia. Dementia is
overwhelmingly an illness of later life and the risk of developing dementia
increase as one gets older;none in 25 people aged between 70 until 79 have dementia but this rises to one in six
people aged over 80. Two-thirds of peopple with dementia live in their own homes
in the community. With an ageing population in the UK it is estimated that
by2021 there will be over a million people with dementia. The cost of dementia
to the UK economy is currently estimated to be $23 billion (Alzheimer’s
Society, 2013).
Ø Public policy and dementia
10 years ago dementia hardly featured
in the public policy landscape. It was not mentioned in the
Department of Health’s (1999) National Serviice Framework (NSF) for mental health
which only went up to the age of 65. In the 2001 NSF for older people it was
onlya sub-section in the chapter on the mental health of older people
(Department of Health, 2001). This changed dramatically in the second half of
the decade with several national reports about dementia and in2009, the publication by the Department
of Health (2009) of a national dementia strategy for England scotland, Wales
and Northem Ireland have all followed suit.
