UK in National Dementia Crisis
The UK's National Health Service, NHS, reports an increase in the number of dementia sufferers in the country. According to the NHS, England is one of the countries with the highest rates of dementia in the world. Dementia itself is a term for a group of symptoms that affect memory, thinking ability, and social abilities so severely that they interfere with daily life.
Among the symptoms of dementia are severe and sometimes acute disturbances in psychological processes that can generally be seen in failure of memory performance, concentration, aphasia, psychological changes, and disturbances in daily activities. NHS data shows that in June 2024, more than 487,000 people in the UK were suffering from dementia. In this regard, The Guardian wrote, "The number of people with dementia in England, compared to January 2023, has increased by 12 percent."
The rapid rise in the number of people with dementia in the UK could be seen as a national crisis, and a warning to the country's health care system which is now under enormous pressure from healthcare costs. Reports by a number of British Parliament members, regarding dementia, arose from discriminatory attitudes towards people with this disease. More than 115,000 people with dementia live in poor areas of the country, their condition is not diagnosed and they are difficult to treat. In this report, several cases such as structural barriers, cultural conflicts, differences in referring to family doctor practices, length of memory tests, lack of support after being diagnosed with dementia, scarcity of scanning equipment, are among the discrimination referred to.
A UK dementia care charity recently announced that one in every 10 deaths in the country is due to dementia and Alzheimer's. More than 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia, and this number is expected to increase to 153 million by 2050. Among the world's countries with the highest rates of dementia are the UK, the US and Canada, and this is driven by a significant rise in the psychological disorder
