Health Care System Preparedness Towards Increase of Alzheimer Patients over the Next 30 Years: Case Study of the Baltic Sea Region States

Conclusions and recommendations
Worldwide the society is ageing with the amount of people older than 65 years old continuously increasing. Ageing is a consequence of the modern developed world: the causes are the ever increasing life expectancy, decreasing birth rates and decreasing birth rates. The current demographic trend incorporates that the amount of newly born children can not outnumber the amount of old people leading to the result that the number of old people is becoming older and larger.
With age also the amount of age related diseases increases. Alzheimer and other dementias are one of the most common diseases among elderly people. Currently there are more people suffering from dementia than citizens in whole Europe. Among the negative characteristics of dementia is the fact that it affects not only the life of the patient who is diagnosed to have dementia, but as well the lives of the patients immediate family members since they have to devote a significant amount of time for care and their psychological conditions are suffering.
Forecasts on demographic changes worldwide expect the amount of people older than 60 to increase from 810 million in 2012 over the next 30 years to 2 billion by 2050. This accordingly means that the number of people with dementia will increase with a similar volume.
According to the expected changes in the demographic structure of society similar changes can be expected in the health care system – as the demand for services adapted to needs characterized for dementia patients will increase, the health care system will have to respond with appropriate changes.
Despite EU policies are addressing the topic of Alzheimer and other dementias since the end of the nineties, concrete calls for member states to establish national dementia plans have arisen only since 2008. …