A new report, Dementia 2010, from the University of Oxford, has revealed that the impact of dementia on the UK’s society and economy is higher than ever.
Commissioned by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, the report shows that dementia research remains severely underfunded compared to other conditions like cancer and heart disease. Dementia 2010 found that 820,000 people are affected, costing the UK economy £23 billion per year, while dementia research funding is twelve times lower than that for cancer research. It calculated that each dementia patient costs the British economy more than the average salary and five times more than the average cancer patient. For every £1 million in health and social care costs for the disease, £129,269 is spent on cancer research and just £4,882 on dementia research. Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “The true impact of dementia has been ignored for too long. The UK’s dementia crisis is worse than we feared. This report shows that dementia is the greatest medical challenge of the 21st century.”
