faculty focus campusreview. com. au
The dementia agenda
As healthcare braces for more and more cases of the disease, the fight against it must focus on research for treatments and helping people change behaviours to limit their risk.
Sharon Naismith interviewed by Antonia Maiolo
With more than 1800 new cases in Australia each week, dementia is expected to be one of the biggest public health issues we will ever face. There are more than 342,800 Australians living with the disease, and without a medical breakthrough the number is expected to grow to almost 900,000 by 2050.
Facing these daunting statistics, industry experts, people living with dementia, carers and researchers recently gathered to share their expertise and stories at a forum on dementia at the University of Sydney. Professor Sharon Naismith from the Brain and Mind Research Institute says it’ s vital to help people optimise brain performance before it’ s too late.
“ We need to promote a better understanding of dementia and focus on targeting risk factors, like a lack of physical activity and depression,” Naismith said.“ Targeting these risk factors could slow or even prevent cognitive decline and the mighty force of the dementia epidemic at a global level.”
Naismith spoke with Campus Review about the different perspectives uncovered at the forum and what the latest research is saying about the disease.
CR: What were the key points raised at the forum, and what were the main messages to come from these?
SN: Many issues were discussed. We have a growing epidemic of dementia, due to the ageing population and the Baby Boomers growing older. As it’ s primarily a disease of age, we [ will see ] up to 1 million people [ diagnosed ] by 2050. So, [ at the forum ] we discussed the best ways to tackle this dementia epidemic. We spoke, [ at an individual level ], about the importance of early diagnosis for people. It’ s clear that we have no cure for dementia, so there is some debate around whether or not there is any point diagnosing people early if we have no opportunity to cure them. Certainly [ there is strong opinion ] that people do have the right to know about their risk of dementia, particularly if they are seeking assessment or information about their cognition.
We also discussed the need to recognise that there are many different forms of the disease. Dementia is, predominantly, a change in someone’ s cognition that occurs over time, and it affects many aspects of their functioning. Not all dementias are the same, and we do need to recognise that people present differently initially.
Another major issue raised at the forum was that of care: the role of carers, the experiences of carers and the need to disseminate
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