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The Documentary: Solving Alzheimer's: The Trillion Dollar Disease

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The Trillion Dollar Disease

22/01/2019 GMT

Solving Alzheimer's

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Solving Alzheimer's, The Trillion Dollar Disease

How will governments find money and workers to care for people living with Alzheimer's?

How will governments find the money and workers to care for people living with Alzheimer's?

Dementia is now a trillion-dollar disease, and with the numbers of people living with the condition doubling every 20 years, the burden will fall unevenly on developing countries where the growth rate is fastest.

We travel to South Korea, the fastest ageing country in the world, where the country’s president has declared the challenge of Alzheimer’s to be a national crisis. We meet families struggling to look after loved ones with Alzheimer’s and question whether countries in both the developed and developing world can afford to provide care for patients. We also visit the Netherlands, where an innovative approach to Alzheimer’s care offers hope for the future.

Presenter: Andrew Bomford
Producer: Estelle Doyle

(Photo: Memory Loss, Credit: Getty Images)

The Documentary: Solving Alzheimer's

No one will escape Alzheimer’s. Here’s what you need to know.

Few of us will escape the impact of Alzheimer’s Disease. The grim pay-back from being healthy, wealthy or lucky enough to live into our late eighties and beyond is dementia. One in three—maybe even one in two of us—will get dementia and forget almost everything we ever knew. And the lucky others? They’ll probably end up caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.

But it’s far more than just a personal family tragedy. It’s a major economic challenge to governments and health-care providers around the world, and will force some fundamental re-thinking on how we care for sufferers. The costs are already immense. Dementia is now a trillion-dollar disease, and with the numbers of patients doubling every twenty years, the burden will fall unevenly on developing countries where the growth rate is fastest.

We report from South Korea, where the economic miracle on the Han river has turned into a demographic time-bomb. Its fast-ageing low birth-rate dilemma is the most extreme in the world, and with a higher than average rate of dementia sufferers, its success story is under threat. We meet campaigners breaking down the barriers of stigma in Nigeria to convince people that Alzheimer’s is a disease that everyone needs to care about, because the solutions cannot be provided by governments alone. We hear from the Netherlands, which on the one hand is a world pioneer in innovative and effective health care, but also allows dementia patients to choose euthanasia.

Presented by Andrew Bomford.

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