THERE IS an urgent need to focus attention on Alzheimer's disease and to put extra efforts into finding effective treatments because the number of people with the condition is set to double by 2050, a conference in Dublin will hear today.
Latest attempts to find an effective treatment and the huge impact the disease has on families and on the health services will be outlined by Prof Brian Lawlor.
Speaking in advance of the conference, Prof Lawlor, a professor of old age psychiatry, said there was "a window of opportunity" over the next 25 years to try to find effective treatments that would not just treat some of the symptoms but would actually halt the progression of the disease.
"It is estimated that by 2050, one in every 85 people will have Alzheimer's disease and 43 per cent of prevalent cases will require a high level of care equivalent to nursing home," Prof Lawlor said. "The prevalence will increase because of the greying of the population worldwide and in Ireland, and it is going to at least double by 2050."
He said there were already "very serious problems" in providing adequate services for people with Alzheimer's but social and demographic changes - where there would be just two people working for every one retired person, as opposed to five to one now - would make it much more difficult to provide services.
Prof Lawlor pointed out that in the US deaths of patients with Alzheimer's had increased by 33 per cent between 2000 and 2004, an increase mirrored throughout western countries. In contrast, death rates from heart disease and some major cancers are declining.
Yet there is a huge disparity in research funding - in the UK there is £11 spent on research for every Alzheimer's sufferer compared with £289 spent on research for every cancer sufferer, Prof Lawlor said.
Prof Lawlor also stressed the huge burden on families caused by Alzheimer's disease where many carers can get only minimal support from health services and suffer poor health themselves as a consequence.
He said the focus of current research was on a toxic protein, amyloid, that builds up on the brain of Alzheimer's sufferers.
Trials of medication that might prevent the deposition of amyloid or that could clear it are currently ongoing. "Studies are ongoing and we will find out in the next five to 10 years whether this approach will help or not," Prof Lawlor said. Existing treatments can only try to improve some of the symptoms.
Prof Eamon O'Shea of NUI Galway will also talk at today's conference on the topic of Dementia in Ireland. Research he conducted for the National Council on Ageing and Older People, which resulted in an Action Plan on Dementia published in 2000, also stressed how the scale of the problem will grow rapidly over the next 40 years as the population ages.
It is estimated that there are currently 38,000 people with dementia, which includes Alzheimer's, in Ireland.
• Prof Lawlor and Prof O'Shea will be among speakers at today's conference at the Mansion House in Dublin, the theme of which is Biotechnology in Ireland and the fight against Alzheimer's