A new report on Thursday reveals that the rising number of Alzheimer patients is leading to a shortage of caregivers who are educated enough to render full care.
The report shows that by 2050, the dependent older adults will increase to 277 million with 50 percent of the aged adults requiring personal care having dementia.
As a traditional norm in the United States, the informal care given by the family, friends and community to the elders require financial aid from the government. This simply implies that leaders need to prioritize the dilemma with dementia by executing national strategies and plans and discuss long-term care plans, according to the 2013 report of World Alzheimer.
Globally, 13 percent of people aging 60 and above require long-term health care and the number of elders who will need the same caring will rise from 101 million to 277 million by 2050.
According to the report, long-term care is chiefly care for people suffering from dementia. The authors estimated $600 billion as the total amount the U.S. government should allot for these patients. Aside from monetary allocations, great attention should also be given to these dementia patients and their families in order for them to “live well with dementia.”
“People with dementia have special needs. Compared with other long-term-care users they need more personal care, more hours of care and more supervision, all of which is associated with greater strain on caregivers, and higher costs. Their needs for care start early in the disease course, and evolve constantly over time, requiring advanced planning, monitoring and coordination," said lead author and professor at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London Martin Price to WebMD.
Some of the specific recommendations presented were systems that will monitor care quality to patients with dementia, freedom to choose for patients, improvement of social and health care systems for both caregivers and patients, sufficient training for caregivers, appreciation of family caregivers, and supervision of care homes to maintain quality.
