“WE ARE sitting on a dementia time bomb and it will explode and impact on vast numbers of members of society,” former BBC broadcaster Angela Rippon told delegates yesterday in Dublin at the Alzheimers Society’s annual conference.
Rippon, whose mother had dementia, is co-chair of a committee established by David Cameron to create dementia-friendly communities across Britain. *
“In 30 years, my hope is that society and clinical practice will look back on 2012 and wonder how we could have been so primitive, and so lacking in understanding in our dealings with people of dementia,” she said.
The Alzheimers Society is marking its 30th anniversary this year, and next year, the Government is due to deliver its national dementia strategy. Almost 42,000 people in the State have been diagnosed with dementia, and it is estimated at least half that number again have not received a diagnosis.
Dominic Trepel, a health economist from the University of York, told delegates that the global cost of treating dementia is put at $603 billion (€466 billion).
* This article was edited on October 31st, 2012.
