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Article: Leader: Spend more on dementia now to save money - and lives - later
- Article from:
- The Scotsman
- Article date:
- July 21, 2009
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Scotsman. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ONE in three Britons over the age of 65 will die suffering from
dementia. Even when the cause of death is something else, dementia
sharply reduces the quality of life for the elderly, as well as for
their families. At present, about 700,000 people in the UK have some
form of dementia - more than half have Alzheimer's. But as the
population ages, these figures are set to rise. In less than 20
years, a million people will be living with dementia. This could
double by mid-century.
Yet it need not be like this. Dementia is far from inevitable. In
fact, the term covers more than 100 disorders that have in common a
progressive loss of brain function. In Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
infectious ...