The worlds first G8 dementia summit was held in London on 11 December 2013, where the alarming statement was made that dementia affects an estimated 35 million people worldwide, a figure set to almost double every 20 years. The summit brought together ministers, researchers, pharmaceutical companies and charities...[1]
At a meeting later in Switzerland, March 2015, called Global Action Against Dementia, Jeremy Hunt made the even more alarming statement: "What we need to do today is to bring the world together to fight dementia. We have to do that because it is a global threat." [2]
"The Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the first national Dementia Research Institute (DRI) in the UK is to be led by the MRC."
"The DRI, which will bring together world leading expertise in discovery science in the fight against dementia, is set to receive up to £150m in funding and be fully functional by 2020." [3]
So this is getting serious. Is this good news for dementia sufferers and their families? Probably not, not when world leaders, charities and the big pharmaceutical companies are getting together and there is more money to be made in the management of dementia than in the cure.
Scotland has its own National Dementia Strategy which will be published later this year in 2016. [4] In Proposal for Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2016-19, the Scottish Government says it will "continue to focus on its national and local human-rights based approach to improving dementia diagnosis rates..".So they see the early diagnosis of dementia as a human right. But what does that really mean? [5]
The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act allows those with a dementia diagnosis to be stripped of their capacity and hence all their human rights along with that diagnosis.. It allows social services to make decisions in the incapacitated adult`s `best interests`. As documented here in the case of Mrs E Kilbride, it means adults may be transported against their will to a care home, followed by the loss of their home, possessions and savings.
But it is even worse than that:
The government wants to prevent avoidable hospitalisation of people with dementia because cure and treatment is for others, not for the demented. There should be a greater focus on `anticipatory` planning, that is, anticipating - predicting death - and responding accordingly. No anxiety about the Liverpool Care Pathway, or any of the other equally bad pathways, is demonstrated here.
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