The big news this week is that levels of dementia cases world wide is set to double every 20 years, according to a study undertaken by Alzheimer's Disease International. In the UK, 700,000 people currently have a form of dementia, and over the next 20 years, this will rise to almost one million.
Statistics like that are pretty hard to take on board - it's a massive number of people and an incredibly significant rise, which could lead to a meltdown of care services which are already in crisis.
But we all know that the care system needs a major overhaul, and reports and industry experts have been warning about the impact of dementia increases for years.
But there was one point made in the report which I didn't know and which had as big an impact on me as the dementia figures themselves ...
''Studies reviewed in the new report suggest that half to three-quarters of carers have significant psychological illness, while up to a third have clinical depression."
The fact that three out of four carers have significant psychological illness is incredibly shocking and unless there is a major change in how dementia care is funded and managed, there will be as many carers in need of NHS services as there are dementia sufferers. But as the report comments...
''While these numbers are staggering, the current investment in research, treatment and care is actually quite disproportionate to the overall impact of the disease on people with dementia, their carers, on health and social care systems, and on society.''
How many warnings will it take before we realise the extent of the crisis which is just around the corner?
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