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Dementia Sufferers to Increase by 70%
within 20 Years
By Tim Ross, The Telegraph
November 10, 2010
United Kingdom
Photo:
The Telegraph
As
England
’s population ages, soaring numbers of people will die in nursing homes
with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, a report for the NHS has
found.
The
number of elderly people with dementia will increase by 70 per cent to
more than 1 million in the next 20 years, according to official
projections.
Researchers
warned that care home staff would need more specialist training to cope
with the “massive” increase in patients with dementia, many of whom
cannot communicate effectively with their nurses.
The
findings reinforce the scale of the challenge the country’s health and
social care system faces as people live longer and require increasingly
specialised support.
The
study, published by the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network, an
NHS programme, analysed figures for the number of deaths recorded with
senility, Alzheimer’s and dementia as an underlying or contributory
cause.
An
estimated 614,000 people in
England
currently have dementia, representing 1.2% of the population.
But
by the 2030s this figure will rise by 72% to an estimated 1,055,000 people
with dementia, 1.8% of the population of
England
. The increases will vary between 44% in
London
and 84% in the
East Midlands
.
People
with dementia are far more likely to die in care homes than those without,
who are more likely to die in hospital, according to the study.
Claire
Henry, director of the National End of Life Care Programme, said patients
with these illnesses were often far less able to communicate and
understand nurses and other staff whose job it was to help them.
“Care
home staff need to be given appropriate training and support in both end
of life care in general and the particular challenges of caring for people
with dementia,” she said.
“Homes
need professionals who can assess a person’s needs and support him or
her in advance care planning.”
The
number of people aged 75 and older in
England
is projected to increase from 4 million in 2008 to 7.2 million in 2033.
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