Almost two million Italians suffer from cognitive decline but it is not easy to navigate the path to follow. We talk about it in the Corriere Salute on newsstands for free with the Corriere on Thursday 2 February
We are publishing a preview of part of an article in the new Corriere Salute. You can read the full text in the free issue on newsstands on Thursday 2 February or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
Losing your way home, constantly forgetting things, not recognizing a loved one, putting things away in the strangest places, having difficulty finding words, understanding speech, counting and doing normal everyday activities, getting angry for no reason, neglecting personal hygiene. These are the symptoms of dementia, an invisible disease that disrupts the lives of those who suffer from it and those close to them. Characterized by a progressive deterioration of brain functions, it entails an enormous burden of disability, which health and welfare services must urgently address.
Alzheimer’s disease represents the most common form (60%-70% of cases). The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 55 million people with dementia. In Italy, the Istituto Superiore di Sanit calculates about 1.1 million and another 900 thousand with a slight cognitive decline, who in 40-50% of cases after 5 years experience a specific dementia disorder Camillus Marra, director of the Memory Clinic of the Gemelli hospital in Rome and president of the Italian Society of Neurology for Dementia. But only half of the patients followed by care services today – says Marra – the rest are managed at home without a diagnosis and adequate treatment, due to poor awareness and lack of clinical references to turn to.
A rampant epidemic, which in 2030 will affect 1.6 million Italians, for which assistance already weighs directly or indirectly on more than 3 million family members and which calls the Regions to challenges that can no longer be postponed. First of all: Build care pathways in the area to shorten the time to diagnosis, which arrives with an average delay of two years, and to facilitate patient care throughout the course of the disease, avoiding do-it-yourself work – he underlines Nicholas Vanacore, head of the Dementia Observatory of the Higher Institute of Health (ISS) -. Then solve the dramatic shortage of personnel. Of the more than 400 centers for cognitive disorders and dementias (the acronym CDCD, ed) distributed along the peninsula, a quarter is open only one day a week.
You can continue reading the article in Corriere Salute on newsstands for free on Thursday 1 December or in PDF on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.
January 31, 2023 (change January 31, 2023 | 21:04)
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