Calls for major dementia investment
Prof Henry Brodaty: Jacob was my father. He was 52 when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Very bright man, very sociable, active, successful in business and it was very tragic to see his decline over the next seven years until he died of a heart attack aged 59.
Annie Guest: Professor Brodaty, what's known about whether dementia rates are getting worse, better or unchanged?
Prof Henry Brodaty: If you look at the absolute rates, they're going up and they're going up because the population is aging. So we have now one in six of our population aged 65 or over and that's approaching one in four over the next generation. However, if we look more closely at the number of new cases, per 1,000 in each age group, there may be a drop and the reason is we're getting better at looking after our hearts.
Annie Guest: Well, indeed, you've talked about things we can all do to lower dementia risk like healthy diets and exercising our bodies and brains and being socially connected. How firm is the evidence that these things can prevent dementia?
Prof Henry Brodaty: Our trial showed that it can improve cognition, coaching with physical activity, nutrition, brain training, depression, anxiety treatment was highly significant in improving cognition. Whether we can actually prove that the number of cases of dementia will be fewer, we need a longer follow-up.
Annie Guest: Dementia is on track to be Australia's biggest killer. You're calling for the big increase in funding for treatment and research and you also say that some things that are proven to help and be cost effective in treating our Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are not properly funded. What are examples of these proven interventions?
Prof Henry Brodaty: Well, look at what can happen after diagnosis. People can have what's called cognitive stimulation therapy, groups of maybe eight people meeting twice a week or once a week and getting stimulation and showing that their cognition does improve. Good research from the UK on that. Cognitive rehabilitation therapy. So if I've got dementia, but there are some things I can't do, things that I can't send my emails or I'm having trouble remembering how to do the cooking, which I love to do. If we can work usually with an occupational therapist to work out strategies to overcome those deficits, to compensate, then we can show and there have been good studies, again from the UK, showing that cognitive rehabilitation works. We know that physical exercise can have an effect on slowing the rate of cognitive decline. With research, we can get better services as well, not just about drugs and about causes. We've been very passionate about introducing dementia navigators to help people with dementia and their family carers navigate the very complex system of aged care.
Annie Guest: And this is an idea that is a little similar to the breast cancer nurses, is that right?
Prof Henry Brodaty: That's right. And we did some modelling of this with PricewaterhouseCoopers and showed that this would be at least cost neutral, if not cost saving. The cost of having the dementia navigators will be offset by reduction in hospital admissions and later admission to nursing homes, which more than covers the cost of hiring the navigators.
Annie Guest: Professor Henry Brodaty, thanks very much for joining PM.
Prof Henry Brodaty: Thank you very much.
Annie Guest: And that's UNSW's Scientia Professor Henry Brodaty.
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