Make dementia a national priority:
I think it is economically sustainable to make dementia a national and social care priority because if the disease is not publicly stated than the other recommendation won’t be possible. Care takers won’t know how to attend and care for the people with the disease. Making this disease public makes people aware of it and that could help with the fund rising. The stakeholders who would agree with this include politics like Prime Minister David Cameron who said “This is simply a terrible disease, and that if we don’t make it a national priority it would lead to a national crisis.”(REF 4). Based on the evidence the Prime Minister believes that dementia is a serious disease which can have massive negative effects on the economy in the future, so this problem is recognized on a high scale. This recommendation will help the economy because if this disease is made a national priority this could help raise the money for the research and that could possibly lead to a good chance of finding a cure.
Increase funding for dementia research:
Another sustainable option would be to increase funding for dementia research because the number of people with the disease is increasing more and more every year. In 2005 16% of the UK population was affected with this disease, this is estimated to increase to 25% by 2041(REF 5). Prime Minster David Cameron stated that this “national crisis” is one his personal priorities, he also launched a “national challenge on dementia.” Funding for dementia research is to reach £66m by 2015 from £26.6m 2010. (REF 6). Increasing the amount dementia research is an important priority because improving the treatment of people with the dementia in the future and providing high quality care to meet their needs means helping get rid of this disease. This recommendation will help the economy because if a cure is to be found that would mean sufferers becoming healthy and not needing a home care and that saves the government billions of pounds, it would also mean a world without dementia and better healthcare. Scientists, researchers and drug companies would benefit from this as they would receive increased funding and money. The patients would also have a higher chance of being cured if a cure is found. Those that will not benefit are other service sectors and other research fields as money would be cut.
Improve dementia care skills:
As the demand for dementia care increases so will the need for staff to accommodate it. Dementia is currently under-diagnosed due to Poor understanding of dementia and its consequences, this all uses up resources for example a quarter of hospital beds is occupied by dementia sufferers at any one time people and through diagnostic procedures they can stay twice as long in hospital . Serious medical conditions are not being identified early and care packages in the community are put in place too late, and are often ineffective and costy without significant focus on improving care across health and social care, outcomes will get worse and the price will increase. Dementia care training should be made a core and substantial part of the training curriculum for nurses and social care staff. Stakeholders who will benefit from this are the patients who will have more experienced carers and therefore better service , another one would be the increased demand will be met, but those who will not benefit is that there will be more attentions towards that sector and less toward other .
In-Conclusion:
Alzheimer’s is an expensive disease and there is no cure for it. It’s hard for people to get diagnosed at early stages as the symptoms could be caused by other conditions. The life expectancy after diagnosis is approximately seven years; fewer than 3% of individuals live more than 14 years after diagnosis. (REF 7). As the population ages the risk for getting dementia is higher and the cost will increase as it’s estimated that the total cost will be £50 billion by 2038. (REF 8). Dementia research is severely underfunded. Just 2.5% of the government’s medical research budget is spent on dementia research, while a quarter is spent on cancer research. Even though the cost of dementia is twice that of cancer. (REF 9).
Increasing funding for dementia is the most important recommendation; this is because without the funding for dementia there wouldn’t be a chance for a cure because there isn’t money to do the research.