Posted by: Uticopa in dementia on
Sep 22, 2009
With around 163,000 new diagnoses every year, dementia has been described as ‘one of the greatest challenges for medicine, nursing and society in the twenty-first century'. We're told that the number of people aged over 65 years is expected to increase by more than 60% in the next 25 years. In fact, while an estimated 700,000 people are currently diagnosed with dementia, 15,000 of them young people, this figure is expected to increase to one million by 2025. This is likely to be a major underestimate by up to three times because of the way the data relies on referrals to services.
The thought of one million people, and more, with dementia is a frightening prospect. Some nurses tell us that they received absolutely no education on dementia at university. Conclusion? They need to provide some! If such a crucial area of health care is being ignored by our univerisities, it gives the impression that it isn't very important, which belittles those with dementia.
Interestingly, two thirds of people with dementia are women.
