Medicine at the Extremes of Life
Dementia: At Risk of Being Forgotten? The remarkable improvements in child health, cardiovascular disease and cancer survival over the last few decades have not been replicated in dementia. As populations age, inexorably the burden of dementia, mainly a disease of ageing, is steadily increasing. The scientific understanding of dementia has advanced, but
if the current slow rate of improvement in prevention and treatment is maintained, the burden of dementia will increase substantially over the next few decades.
Advances in prevention and treatment of dementia in the elderly, including Alzheimer's, are painfully slow despite the scale of the problem. Is this a failure of science, of the will of our generation to tackle a problem restricted to the elderly, or do we need to accept that it will just happen and plan to minimise its inevitable substantial impact on individuals, families and society?
(from gresham.ac.uk)
| 6. Dementia: At Risk of Being Forgotten? |
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