Alzheimer’s numbers set to double

HEALTH MINISTER Christos Patsalides yesterday underlined the need for more information on Alzheimer’s disease, which he described as “an epidemic of the 21st century”.

“These people suffer from social exclusion, as their close environment is not informed about the disease and therefore they try to protect the patient from what they feel is ridicule,” said Patsalides.

In Cyprus, he added, it is estimated that five per cent of people over the age of 65 suffer from a type of Alzheimer’s-related dementia, which means around 5,000 pensioners are suffering symptoms of the disease, to a greater or lesser degree.

The figures are expected to triple internationally by the year 2050, due to the continuous increase in life expectancy.

Referring to the financial aspect, Patsalides said free medical care to Alzheimer sufferers costs the state around €640,000 annually, treating 1,400 patients. The recently implemented measure of co-funding, he added, sets the state back a further €240,000 a year.

The head of ministry’s Alzheimer Committee, Yiannis Kalakoutas, said the radical increase in registered sufferers meant the disease “concerns all of us”.

He said one per cent of the Cypriot population currently suffered from some form of the condition.

“Based on our own data, now that diagnoses are taking place more rapidly, this percentage could in fact double, reaching 10,000 [patients]”, Kalakoutas explained.

Timely diagnosis, he added, is of the utmost importance in order to delay the condition from developing.

“The disease, as with all mental health conditions, carries a stigma,” said Kalakoutas. “This stigma needs to be combated first, to be accepted by the relatives and the patients themselves, if they are to cooperate with us and receive the best possible therapy.”

He said it was this stigma that encouraged relatives to hide their elders at home, instead of seeking treatment. “Unfortunately, the diagnoses we had so far all over Cyprus are on people who are suffering from an advanced form of Alzheimer’s

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