Tackling Dementia

One in five of those of us who live past 80 develop dementia.

Several people that I knew suffered from this horrible condition, which can be very distressing for the victim and is always excruciating for his or her loved ones who see the person they cared for slipping away while their body is still alive.

So I wa very pleased to see that the Prime Minister promised a "big, bold global push" to beat dementia.

Speaking to an audience of 300 global dementia and finance specialists at a summit in London, David Cameron said he would speed up progress on dementia drugs by getting experts to come up with new proposals on areas such as drug patent extensions, by October. He pledged to accelerate progress on dementia by increasing funding and making new drugs more accessible.

In his speech, the prime minister told experts that dementia is one of the "greatest enemies of humanity".

He said that
"It is important to see dementia as a disease and one that we need to better understand so that we can tackle it”

and added

"We are renewing our commitment to say by 2025 we want to find a cure to dementia. We should treat this as a disease rather than as some natural part of ageing."

He also said there was a need to develop more drugs and get them to patients more quickly. For that to happen, international collaboration and more money for dementia research was needed.

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