FED: Dementia on the rise, experts warn
By Danny Rose, Medical WriterTue Sep 1 05:15:04 EST 2009
Mon Aug 31 19:15:04 UTC 2009
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SYDNEY, Sept 1 AAP - The number of Australians living with dementia will top one million within 40 years, as a wave of baby boomers hits the nation's nursing homes.
Those living with degenerative brain conditions will quadruple from levels seen today, according to research that also shows how dementia will demand an increasingly big chunk of the nation's health spending.
"Without a significant medical breakthrough, the number of Australians affected by dementia is expected to increase from 245,000 in 2009 to 591,000 in 2030," says John Watkins, CEO of Alzheimer's Australia.
"... And again to a staggering 1.13 million by 2050."
Dementia - a term used to describe a large group of illnesses that cause a progressive decline in a person's mental functioning - is fatal and there is no cure.
The ageing of the population is expected to see these neurodegenerative diseases, which include Alzheimer's Disease, rival heart disease and cancer as major threats to Australian health.
Dementia is forecast to require 11 per cent ($83 billion) of the nation's health and aged care spending by 2060.
Mr Watkins says Australia's first baby boomers would turn 65 next year and by 2020 - just a decade away - an estimated 75,000 would have dementia.
"Dementia will be the disease of the century," Mr Watkins says.
The figures, contained in the Access Economics report commissioned by Alzheimer's Australia, represent a significant increase on dementia projections published in 2005.
Access Economics says the rise is due to updated census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, along with a rising incidence of dementia reported by epidemiolgists.
Other key findings of the research are that Australia now sees about 1,300 new cases of dementia weekly, and that this was increase to 7,400 weekly by 2050.
The number of people with dementia living in regional communities is forecast to increase by more than 350 per cent by 2050, to almost 450,000 people.
Australia also faces a shortage of more than 150,000 paid and unpaid carers within one generation, and the cost of replacing all family carers with paid carers will total $5.5 billion a year.
Professor Peter Schofield, chief executive of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute in Sydney, says the burgeoning number of people with dementia shows the importance of supporting research into the condition.
Prof Schofield says there are now "realistic prospects" of developing new techniques and therapies to detect dementia earlier, delay its onset or slow its progression.
"If that is to become a reality then significantly greater investment is needed in dementia research."
AAP dr/cjb/cdh =0A
FED: Dementia on the rise, experts warn