The World Health Organisation on Wednesday declared dementia to be a global public health priority. With India’s geriatric population expected to increase from 7.5 per cent to 12 per cent by 2025, the problem of dementia or progressive memory loss needs to be addressed at the earliest.
In AP, around 3 lakh elderly people suffer from dementia. Hyderabad has an estimated 40,000 Alzhei-mer’s patients. On an average, one in four senior citizens suffers from it and the disease also imposes a huge financial burden on individuals and public health systems.
The Indian government has incorporated dementia in the 12th Five-Year Plan as a serious health problem. There’s a proposal to set up regional centres of excellence for dementia care, informed Rukshana Ansari, general secretary of ARDSI (Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India).
The state government showed brief interest in the issue in 2010, but its plan to set up memory clinics in various hospitals to help Alzheimer’s patients has never got off the ground. At present, there are only two memory clinics in the city, at NIMS Hospital and Gandhi Medical College. Moreover, awareness about the ailment has yet to be raised at district level.
Dr Suvarna Alladi, neurologist at NIMS and president of ARDSI, said, “While Alzheimer’s is the main cause of dementia or progressive memory loss , vascular dementia is also caused in 20 per cent of patients due to ailments like diabetes, stroke, hypertension, hypothyroid, obesity, vitamin B deficiency, head injury, meningitis, tuberculosis, HIV and Parkin-son’s disease.”
Dr Alladi says some cases are genetic. “This progressive neuro-psychological disease causes memory loss, decline in intellectual faculty or cognitive abilities and behavioural disturbances in elderly people, making them totally dependant on care-givers.”
Dr A.K. Purohit, head of the neurosurgery department at Nims, said that certain kinds of memory loss can be improved through surgical intervention, especially those stemming from chronic subdural haematoma, arterio-veinous malfunction, tumours of frontal lobes, water accumulation in the brain, head injury, and meningitis.
“In dementia, the various brain cells degenerate and become non-functional as amyloid protein deposits on them,” he said. Though there is no complete cure, the latest drugs can slow down the progress of the disease.