By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter


The number of people suffering from dementia might reach 135mn by 2050, cautions a report published by the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH).
WISH, a global initiative of Qatar Foundation, published the report at the second WISH summit held on February 17-18 in Doha.
According to the report, 44mn people worldwide suffer from dementia currently. To address dementia in a comprehensive way, the report suggests three primary themes which are prevention and risk reduction, diagnosis and care, and cure.
Meanwhile, the cost of care reached an estimated $604bn worldwide in 2010, equivalent to 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP), and cost is expected to exceed $1trn annually in the US alone by 2050.
The WISH Forum report, prepared under the chairmanship of Ellis Rubinstein, president and chief executive officer, the New York Academy of Sciences, has outlined a number of recommendations to meet the threat of dementia.
This report outlines key issues in understanding dementia and the need to tackle the burden globally. It looks at solutions that are currently available and makes recommendations to policymakers to accelerate prevention, improve care and treatments, and potentially cure the diseases that lead to dementia.
According to the report, there must be a national plan to address dementia in every country or include dementia as a priority in country-specific and United Nations (UN) plans for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases. It also calls for increasing awareness of dementia by engaging public, patients and caregivers by carrying out awareness campaigns, developing dementia-friendly environments and supporting the creation of Alzheimer’s associations in every country.
The forum has also recommended expansion of healthy living to include brain health, embed brain health in public health strategies, taking a life course approach to healthy aging. It looks to improve the evidence base for prevention such as fund studies and prevention trials that help to understand the effectiveness of risk reduction strategies and advance efforts to find a therapeutic intervention to delay or prevent the onset of dementia.
The forum also has called for improving dementia care, implement well-evidenced and cost effective best practices in dementia care, as appropriate to regional healthcare systems’ available resources.
There are also suggestions that there must be commitment for government investment of at least 1% of a country’s cost of care in this regard. This must be invested in basic, clinical and applied dementia-related research and technologies to ensure financially sustainable healthcare systems in the future through budget increases to encourage capacity building to recruit more scientists and clinicians.It also suggests to facilitate innovative finance mechanisms to attract private investment among a wider range of investors and increase financial resources across the arc of disease management.


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