US lags behind in dementia strategies.

the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report in December ( http://www.aging.senate.gov/reports/rpt2012.pdf ) examining how five nations — the United States, Australia, France, Japan and Britain — are responding to growing numbers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.” After noting how Australia, France, Japan and the UK are way ahead of the US in planning for a growing number of older people with dementia. Other countries with which the United States is closely aligned have embraced long-term care as an essential social responsibility while we have not.  Probably more important to students of chronic disease of the findings of the committee that week still do not have adequate screening procedures to detect Alzheimer’s disease, nor despite the licensing of certain drugs do we have good intervention techniques.  It is clear that more work needs to be done in basic research for translational research can take place.  In many respects Alzheimer’s label has become a generic label for different types of dementia just says autism has become a label for a number of similar childhood diseases.  It’s despite the activism for both diseases treatment and diagnosis have a long way to go for both groups of diseases.

Source: Dr. Buttery's Public Health BLOG - January 1, 2013 Category: Epidemiologists Authors: cbuttery Tags: behavioral change Chronic Disease Community Health geriatrics policy research Source Type: blogs