“Dementia is Britain’s biggest killer – there’s a need to make it a priority” – Dr Mohinder Kapoor talks World Alzheimer’s Month

To mark World Alzheimer’s Month Dr Mohinder Kapoor, consultant in old age psychiatry and associate medical director for research and development, shares his reflections.

Dementia is a degenerative brain condition that affects over 50 million people internationally and which robs a person of their memory, competency, comprehension and behavioural awareness, usually slowly, over years. It is a sad condition to live with or to witness in a loved one. There are over 100 forms of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s Disease at 50-60% of all dementia cases.

Dementia was the leading cause of death in Britain for the last 10 years. Prevalence of dementia is high, with over 900,000 people living with a dementia in Britain today, this is estimated to increase to 1.6 million by 2050. Research shows, whilst people may be concerned about dementia as a health condition, not enough people are aware of the scale of the problem, and how likely it is to directly affect them.

World Alzheimer’s Month is an annual international event, always held in September and run by Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI). The aim of the month is to raise awareness and challenge stigma surrounding Alzheimer’s and dementia. The event has been running since 2012.

Globally there is thought to be poor understanding and a great deal of stigma surrounding dementia, so the work of World Alzheimer’s Month is vital and is growing and targeting the stigma and lack of understanding and knowledge surrounding Alzheimer’s disease and dementia as well as supporting those suffering with the disease. World Alzheimer’s Day, which takes place every 21 September, is a global effort to raise awareness and challenge the stigma around Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia.

The campaign theme for World Alzheimer’s Month 2023 is ‘Never too early never too late’. The ‘Never too early, never too late’ campaign aims to underscore the pivotal role of identifying risk factors and adopting proactive risk reduction measures to delay, and potentially even prevent, the onset of dementia. This includes ongoing risk reduction strategies for individuals who have already received a diagnosis.

There is growing awareness that Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias can start many years prior to symptoms, likewise awareness of the lifelong brain health interventions and choices that can be made. With the global number of people living with dementia expected to triple by 2050, there has never been a more urgent need to understand and respond to the risk factors associated with this condition.

There is a need to make dementia a priority in health and social care. Someone in the UK developing dementia every three minutes demonstrate the vast scale of dementia as one of the most urgent health and social care issue of our time. It also overturns the continuing, widespread misconceptions that dementia is just a natural, inevitable part of ageing, rather than being a terminal disease.

Take part in dementia research!

Research offers hope. Through research we can understand the causes of dementia.

Many people choose to take part in dementia research to make a real difference to the future of dementia care, diagnosis and treatment.

The easiest way to do this is to register with a nationwide service called Join Dementia Research

References

https://www.alzint.org/get-involved/world-alzheimers-month/never-too-early-never-too-late/

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-us/dementia-UK-leading-cause-of-death

https://www.awarenessdays.com/awareness-days-calendar/world-alzheimers-month-2023/

https://www.dementiauk.org/information-and-support/world-alzheimers-month/