David Cameron made a speech at the recent G8 Dementia Summit recently.
Frankly, it seems to me the premises on which his speech was based are wrong-headed, and the language – that fighting, defeating, destroying war type of language which is used way too often in relation to problems in the world – is at best unhelpful and at worst takes us in wholly the wrong direction.
What really bothered me?
this disease steals lives; it wrecks families; it breaks hearts and that is why all of us here are so utterly determined to beat it.
What exactly is this “it”? What kind of creature is it which steals, wrecks and breaks? This is the fundamental problem. Dementia is not a creature, it’s not an alien, it’s not an object even. It’s a process. In fact, I wouldn’t even use the word “it” in relation to dementia (I don’t use “it” in relation to any disease). This is a process which is a process occurring within a human being, a human being who lives within multiple physical, cultural and social environments, a human being who cannot be understood in isolation. If we see dementia as an object we are going to have a hard job achieving sufficient understanding to make a difference.
And then there is this….
In generations past, the world came together to take on the great killers. We stood against malaria, cancer, HIV and AIDS and we are just as resolute today.
We stood against malaria, cancer, HIV and AIDS, Mr Cameron? “Mission accomplished”? I don’t think so. What does WHO think about cancer rates?
The WHO predicts the number of cancer cases will soar to more than 19 million a year by 2025.
(14 million cases in 2012, up from 12.7 million in 2008)
The rest of his speech celebrates the amount being spent on pursuing drugs to treat dementia –
We are throwing everything we have at making the UK the place to invest and locate and work in life sciences. And I can tell you today, this strategy is reaping serious rewards. In the past 2 years we’ve had £1.8 billion of investment into this country announced.
But what do we know already works to reduce the chances of developing dementia?
Is there anything which has been shown to reduce the risk by as much as, say, 50%?
Yes, there is. Exercise.
How much of that £1.8 billion of investment has gone into this proven prevention? Nope, I don’t know either…..
Actually there are many things which seem to reduce the chances of dementia, and they are all related to how we live our lives – diet, exercise, smoking, stress management, mental stimulation and learning, social engagement and healthy relationships. In fact, pretty much the same things which have been shown to reduce chances of getting cancer too.
Turns out the best ways we know of tackling these big rises in these diseases is not to treat them like evil enemies to be defeated but by seriously changing our lifestyles.
We are not, as a species, living sustainable lives on this planet. How about we invest in tackling that issue?
Heroes Not Zombies 
As usual , no arguments with the reasoning here Bob . Is it a coincidence that a good deal of the rhetoric seems to be couched in the language of battle and war …getting tough on ‘objective’ problems. Politicians are very good at this –especially for the last 30 -40 years or so .
The nurse head of dementia research at Stirling sounded much more sane and rational .We have to improve the care and manage the consequences of the process of dementia and the effect it has on families. This doesn’t make headlines or channel resources.
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