The biggest health crisis of our lifetime
As The Guardian puts it, Dementia is the leading cause of death in England and Wales. There are approximately 850,000 people living with dementia today, costing the economy £26Bn. The number of people with dementia is expected to grow to 2 million by 2050. This horrible disease robs families from their loved ones twice, once when they are living with it and then when they leave our world. The majority of dementia patients are cared for at home by members of their families, who are not adequately enabled or equipped for such a significant undertaking, which leads to them suffering from depression, anxiety and isolation. While there is great effort to help slow the disease progression, there is not enough focus on enabling the family carers especially in the following key problem areas: 1. The unrealistic expectation of individuals to become trained professional carers overnight by reading 100s of pages of information online, while only spending a maximum of an hour with a doctor and a Post Diagnosis Nurse. 2. Not getting the best out of the precious interactions with doctors because carers are not equipped with the right information at the right time 3. They suddenly become coordinators between several health and social care entities, in addition to non-profit and private care services providers, experiencing all the disconnections and gaps between those entities.
