Simultaneously to the impoverishing cost of medical insurance, drug prices and nursing home care, the percentage of elderly experiencing dementia is rising at an alarming rate
With no known cure and difficulty in defining causation, and course of deterioration, families are facing the painful dilemma of either institutionalizing or finding 24-hour home care. In either case the enormous financial impact is devastating families as the cost of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or private pay home care is beyond the means of most families. As a result a family member has to give up their job, or a combination of relatives have to reduce their working hours, to share the responsibility of care.
The most tragic aspect of this horrendous problem is that the proliferation of medicine and surgical procedures have significantly increased the survival rate for the human body but insufficient research has kept pace for the maintenance of a healthy brain.
No matter the ultimate form of care the person with dementia receives the emotional toll upon relatives, or partners, is too often devastating, as they experience guilt for the decisions they must make, and grief as they watch the slow disappearance of their loved one.
This problem cannot be solved when the major attention of this government is in reducing the necessary funding for research and treatment while concentrating on enhancing the lives of a small segment of society.
Betty Ussach-Schwartz
Southampton