Dementia has to be treated as a priority

Titled ‘Dementia has to be treated as a priority’, the piece explored the facts and stats about dementia and the dire consequences of the disease if the government does not make dementia a national health priority.

Dementia has to be treated as a priority

Dementia is the iceberg that will cripple Australia's health care system and this is the year political leaders must take decisive action to combat the epidemic.

There are 280,000 Australians with dementia. Each week, 1600 new cases are diagnosed, so that by 2050 more than 1 million Australians will be living with various forms of the disease. It already costs $6 billion annually and by 2030 will represent the third-largest area of hospital and residential care costs. Yet, unbelievably, dementia is not recognised as a National Health Priority.

Six years ago, the Dementia Initiative implemented in the federal budget with bipartisan support gave hope that at last political leaders understood the need for action and that successive governments would build on it, and plan to beat dementia and address new priorities.

But the 1.5 million Australians who have dementia or care for someone with dementia had their hopes destroyed in the 2011 budget when the Dementia Initiative was terminated. There is now no plan to address dementia. We need to know that the Gillard government will act on aged care in the 2012 budget and that the opposition will set out their position.

The health and hospital reforms, reforms of primary care and preventive health have passed without addressing dementia. The disease has been disowned by the health policymakers and referred to the aged care system for warehousing in residential care.

Australians have one of the world's longest life expectancies but health ministers now need to focus on how to ensure that these extra years are years of quality. Addressing dementia must be the first step.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, will focus on returning the budget to surplus next May. While the economic imperative is understandable, Australians cannot afford another budget that ignores dementia. Without a comprehensive strategy, the social and economic impact of this fatal disease on the nation's future health prospects will be unfathomable.

Happily, Australia now has a Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, who has recognised that dementia is one of the great medical challenges.

Investing $500 million over the next five years would help fund vital research and provide much needed support to those experiencing or caring for someone with dementia.

Dementia is Australia's second-most feared disease but is perhaps also the most misunderstood. Many think it just an unfortunate consequence of ageing. It is not. Dementia is a terminal illness that can strike at almost any age. In fact, damage to the brain begins decades before clinical symptoms of dementia appear. Like other chronic diseases there are ways of reducing the risk of developing dementia but most people are unaware of them.

Clearly, more support services must be provided for people with dementia and more respite support made available to carers. And it is time to promote prevention measures to ensure that people are as aware of brain health as they are of the need for healthy hearts. We should promote warning signs so that people are diagnosed and helped in a timely and humane manner. We must continue research to find new treatments for this debilitating disease.

This year must be the year dementia is made a National Heath Priority.

By Glenn Rees, National CEO, Alzheimer's Australia

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