Changing medical priorities !

The disease we fear the most is Cancer.  When it comes to donating money for medical research, Cancer tops the list, followed by heart disease.   Unfortunately, Dementia is now nearing the apex of diseases that will constrict the lifestyle and then kill an ever increasing number of Australians - and it seems set to overwhelm our capacity to provide beds in hospitals and nursing homes.

Medical statistics show that Alzheimers disease numbers are ramping up exponentially and by 2050 there will be 900,000 sufferers in Australia, three times the present number.  This is a disease that slowly gains control of a sufferers brain and reduces their ability to make day by day decisions.   They lose the control that allows them to shower, dress, prepare food and make the minor decisions of everyday living.   It has often been called " the disease of the long good-bye " because sufferers often lose their ability to recognise loved ones and exist in a state of mental oblivion until finally released by death.

There is hope that eventually we will discover a cure or possibly some sort of inoculation to prevent Dementia, but at the moment there are some promising trials under way that may slow down the onset and if that can be achieved, giving as little as four years of grace, then it would reduce Dementia numbers from 900,000 to just 400,000 by 2050.

We have the NSW/ACT Dementia Training Centre right here in Wollongong, at the University of Wollongong Innovation campus.   It suffers the usual problem of lack of funds to progress some promising innovations and we badly need to change our medical funding priorities.    This monster of a disease is set to invade it's way right into the heart of family living and when it does - it changes the way we live and care for our loved ones - forever.

Huge sums of money are donated each year to attack Cancer and heart disease.  An injection of $ 200 million into Dementia research over just a four year period would have a good chance of bringing that promising research to the point where it could slow the disease onset.    That seems the best bet to head off a Dementia epidemic in the short term.

Advances in the recognition and treatment of Cancer and heart diseases are delivering results.  A well oiled money trail is in place, using the patronage of people who have made funding research their careers.  We need these sort of people to help share the load of bringing Dementia research into the main field of medicine if we are going to succeed in stopping Alzheimers becoming the scourge of the twenty-first century.

We all fear death from Cancer or a sudden heart attack.   By comparison, Dementia kills more slowly, but it spreads it's web of misery in a wider  circle that encompasses the entire family.   Without the means to curb it's advance, few will escape becoming at least a partial victim !