Dementia epidemic starting to bite in regional Australia
November 16, 2006Australia only has between five and 10 years to put systems in place to deal with dementia in rural and regional Australia or it will be swamped by an epidemic of unprecedented proportions, a dementia expert claims.
Dementia is an illness causing memory loss and progressive decline in thinking and memory, which mostly occurs, as people get older. It is one of the most disabling of all chronic diseases, and its incidence and impact is increasing rapidly as the population ages.
Approximately 200,000 Australians aged 65 years and over have dementia but that number is expected to triple in the next few decades as more Australians live longer. Australia is already in the grip of a dementia epidemic and within the next few decades a quarter of the entire Australian population will be 60 years and over and at risk.
Government-funded television series
As a result, the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing has made dementia a national health priority and is funding a series of educational television broadcasts on how to manage dementia. These will appear on the Rural Health Education Foundation’s satellite television network.
“There has been a very rapid rise in the number of people with dementia in rural and regional communities because that part of Australia is ageing at a much faster rate than the population in the major cities,” Dr Mark Yates, a Geriatrician and Clinical Director of Aged Care Rehabilitation Medicine at the Ballarat Health Service explains. “To understand the magnitude of the problem, you only have to look at 100 people 85 years and older and you’ll find 25 of them have dementia.”
Dementia has a dramatic effect on people and their families because it affects memory and thinking. Between 60 to 70 per cent of people with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease while another 20 to 30 per cent have dementia as a result of disrupted blood flow to the brain such as a stroke or other vascular problem.
“At first, the symptoms are relatively mild but later as the patient gets worse they can begin shadowing the carer, develop quite severe anxiety, wander and become suspicious of even the simplest day-to-day things. After a while they can become quite a handful for the carer and the family,” Dr Yates says. Diagnosing dementia is extremely important, not only to pick up the disease in the first instance, but to also ensure that the right diagnosis is made. “From a health professionals perspective, this requires general practitioners to be actively on the look out for dementia when people turn 75 years,” he says.
How dementia develops
Dementia usually takes five to eight years to develop but often families report a major life change, such as the sudden death of a partner, as a trigger. “I often get families saying this,” Dr Yates says, “but actually dementia is not the result of a sudden event. The death or change in circumstance that the family believes was the cause, really just exposed a problem that was being covered up by the actions of a partner. You’ll often find that over time the partner has been taking over more of the household duties and decision-making and their sudden death left a vacuum.”
Almost everyone with dementia is limited in what they can do. Symptoms include being unable to make decisions, perform normal daily tasks and recognise people through to moodiness and suffering hallucinations, delusions and even paranoia.
“In terms of people with a family member who has dementia, it’s important to keep informed and make preparations to take on a role that you may never have thought you would ever face,” Dr Yates says. “Dementia is a path we walk with our patients and their families that begins with mild memory loss and then steadily progresses through to the need to provide considerable support with things like washing, showering, dressing and feeding the person.
“Effectively managing this difficult journey requires everyone to work together - the family, general practitioner, community care group and the hospital - so people get proper care and the family get the support they need. Every case of dementia is unique because the person and their family will have a different set of needs.”
Forgetfulness not always a sign of dementia
However, people shouldn’t be alarmed about routine day-to-day forgetfulness and think it’s the onset of dementia. “One of the most common complaints people make is that they can’t remember why they walked into a room. While this produces a lot of anxiety, it is not dementia. Dementia is not that you’ve forgotten the colour of the bride’s dress but that you’ve forgotten who the bride is,” Dr Yates stresses.
Dementia series of programs
The first program in the Dementia Series of five different television programs covers assessment and diagnosis and will be broadcast live through the Rural Health Education Foundation’s dedicated satellite network of more than 620 sites around Australia.
The first program will feature Dr Mark Yates; neuro-psychologist, Ms Anne Unkenstien; Occupational Therapist, Ms Jacqui Wesson; Dr Fiona Millard; and Ms Shirley Garnett from the National Consumer Committee of Alzheimer’s Australia and is facilitated by Dr Norman Swan, presenter of ABC Radio National’s Health Report. The program will be broadcast live at 8.00pm Sydney time on Tuesday 21 November and repeated on Friday 24 November at 1.30 pm (Sydney time).
Other programs in the series cover physical co-morbidity, mental health, quality use of medicines and support for carers and their families and will air on 6 December, 30 January and 20 and 27 February, 2007.
About the Rural Health Education Foundation
Originally established in 1992, the Rural Health Education Foundation produces and distributes distance education television programs, presented by health and medical experts. For more than 90 per cent of rural doctors and other rural health professionals, the Rural Health Education Foundation is an education “lifeline” to the latest information on health issues.