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Health and Welfare Minister Jeon Jae-hee has said senile dementia is a treatable disease but is being neglected, and promised to come up with comprehensive measures to deal with the problem. Cerebrovascular senile dementia, which accounts for 30 percent of all dementia cases, can be prevented effectively by staying healthy. Metabolic dementia, which results from malnutrition or brain tumors, accounts for 20 percent of all cases and can be cured. Patients with degenerative dementia, which accounts for the remainder of the disease, can either see their health improve or slow the progress of the illness if it is detected early.
A rapidly aging society has led to a rise in the number of senile dementia patients from 280,000 in 2000 to 400,000 this year. That accounts for one out of every 12 Koreans aged 65 or above. This number will increase to 700,000 in 10 years, when one out of every five households will have to care for a senile dementia patient. People suffering from the disease need constant attention, so their children are forced to quit their jobs and tend to the ill or have to hire someone else to take care of them. Siblings end up fighting over who will have to take care of a parent suffering from dementia. To minimize such instances, the disease needs to be tackled on a national level.
The most important thing is early detection. Only a third of all dementia patients are diagnosed in hospitals, and only 30 percent of them receive medical treatment after diagnosis. That means nine out of every 10 dementia patients don’t even get diagnosed, let alone receive medical treatments. That’s because many people perceive dementia not as a disease but as part of the aging process and feel no need to seek the help of physicians.
We need a public effort. Starting this year, France has come up with a dementia prevention plan by investing 1.6 billion euros (around W2.5 trillion) over the next five years. Under that plan, France will build 11,000 dementia counseling centers and expand the number of home visits by nurses. The United States, where there are 5 million dementia patients, operates a national hypertension awareness program to lower the risk of developing dementia.
The number of dementia patients is catching up with the number of cancer patients. The government has allocated an annual budget of W102.7 billion (US$1=W1,149) to treat cancer, but only W1.2 billion has been set aside for dementia. That needs to change.
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