Alzheimer’s, an incurable disease known as dementia that impairs memory by declining brain function, has been declared a ‘social and health crisis’ of 21st century by World Health Organisation but in Pakistan the government has neither recognised it as a prevalent disease nor is planning to provide special medical facility to the Alzheimer’s patients in any public hospital across the country.
According to data available with Pakistan Today there are about 377,000 Alzheimer’s patients in the country and unfortunately there is no doctor specialising in the field.
In the absence of a specialist, neurosurgeons and psychologists are giving treatment to them with pathetic results.
The data further reveals that the problem of Alzheimer’s patients will increase with the sizeable addition of more than one million within twenty years and their numbers will increase up to two million patients by 2050 only in Pakistan.
REASONS FOR IGNORANCE: “The present data is not up to date and neither the government nor any Non-Government Organisation (NGO) has any mechanism to collect the actual numbers of Alzheimer’s patients in Pakistan and the reason behind this is lack of resources and interest on the government’s part and apathetic attitude of the NGOs working on health issues in the country. The second cause is the lack of reporting. The families of the Alzheimer’s patients deem it to be a social stigma and try to hide their patients by detaining them inside the walls of their homes. The third major factor is that it is an incurable disease and expensive treatment is required to slow down the process of degenerating of the patient’s brain,” doctors disclosed while talking to Pakistan Today.
SYMPTOMS AND CURE: Dr Yasmin Raashid, an illustrious gynecologist and patron of Alzheimer’s Pakistan, talking about the disease said “Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia and owing of degenerative brain syndromes it could affect memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion,” adding that “The chemistry of the brain changes and cells, nerves and transmitters are attacked and eventually the brain shrinks as gaps develop” and that one could recognise the disease by symptoms of memory loss, disorientation, confusion and problems with reasoning and thinking. She further said dementia primarily affected older people and the chance of having the condition rose sharply with age to 1 person in 20 over the age of 65 while over the age of 85, the figures increases to 1 person in 4. She made it clear that there is no cure for dementia but recent medication may slow down the progression of the disease in the patient. She said there were about 36 million people worldwide with dementia and two third of them lived in developing countries and this figure could reach up to 115 million people by 2050.
“Dementia requires expensive treatment and total cost of care for dementia amounts to more than 1 percent of global gross domestic product which touched the figure of US$604 billion in 2010,” she added.
GOVT’S ROLE: Dr Yasmin urged the government to create a national Alzheimer’s plan for Pakistan by focusing on raising awareness, education of professionals and caregivers, increase diagnosis and promote risk reduction. She said the government should also seek additional support from Alzheimer’s Disease International and International Psycho Geriatric Association.
Dr Saqib Mehmood, PhD holder in Genetic Science of University of Health Science, talking to Pakistan Today said, “Alzheimer’s Pakistan is the only NGO working for the welfare of Alzheimer’s patients but there should be a systematic plan for looking after these patients” adding that even though the number of patients was low that did not mean that they could be ignored. He said most of the affected people in the country belonged to above the age of 60 and cases below 45 were diagnosed rarely.
He said Alzheimer’s could be hereditary disease only when it occurred in middle-aged people. He said the main thing was to create awareness among the families of the dementia-affected people so that they could approach medical facilities in initial stages to slow down the process of dementia.
SOCIAL STIGMA: Dr Masood Akhter Sheikh, Deputy Medical Superintendent (DMS) of Sir
Ganga Ram Hospital, said Alzheimer’s is deemed as a social stigma in Pakistan and people avoided to disclose about Alzheimer’s patients even in their own circles. He said an ex-chief justice of the apex court is affected with Alzheimer’s and no one knew about him because his family had hidden his disease from public due to embarrassment. He said dementia affected slowly and in first phase, the patient forgets the names and they use their perception but gradually they forget everything around them. He said it was tragic families when their dear ones forget their names.
THE COUNTRY’S ONLY DAY CARE
CENTRE: Zia Haider Rizvi, president of Alzheimer’s Pakistan, said there is only one day care centre setup especially for Alzheimer’s patients in Lahore with the financial support of Australia and there were about 9 Alzheimer’s patients who stayed there the whole day. He said the centre provided facilities like physiotherapy, medical care, speech therapy, veterans’ club and games.
He said the day care centre for Alzheimer’s patients were being run by Alzheimer’s Pakistan free of cost and foreign donors and philanthropists bore all the expenditures. He said the credit goes to former Punjab chief minister Ch Pervez Elahi who granted Rs3 million to day care centre during his tenure and with this fund a van was purchased that provided pick and drop services to Alzheimer’s patients. He said Pattoki Sugar Mill’s owner Muhammad Aslam had also donated Rs 50,000 to them. He said every facility was given to the patients free of cost. He said the door of Alzheimer’s Day care Centre was opened for all without discrimination and the centre was a blessing for caregivers as they could get relief in their homes by sending their patients to day care centre.
They forget because they have Alzheimer’s, what’s our excuse?
