shockedcanadian
Diamond Member
- Aug 6, 2012
- 43,702
- 42,742
- 3,605
Police States are expensive.
Be careful who you trust America...
www.thestar.com
Phyllis Fehr waited five years to get diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
When that day finally came, she remembers how her doctor looked past her, didn’t speak to her, and told her husband “Bring her back when she can’t dress herself.”
Speaking from her home in Hamilton, Fehr recalled that moment.
“It’s very dehumanizing,” Fehr said.
“You feel like ‘Oh my God, maybe I am worse than I think I am. Maybe I can’t make decisions … it makes you question absolutely anything and everything that happens.”
It’s an experience that is all too common for people with dementia in Canada, who are often left to fend for themselves and are forced to navigate a fragmented pathway to treatment and care, according to a new report by the Brainwell Institute. Canada is falling behind other countries in supporting people with dementia, from prevention to diagnosis to end-of-life care, says the report, called “Mind the Gap — Closing the Care Divide for Canadians with Dementia.”
Canada was the last country in the G7 to release a national dementia strategy, in 2019 and the average wait time, from the onset of symptoms to receiving a formal diagnosis, is 21 to 28 months — among the longest in the G7. In contrast, the average wait time for a cancer, heart disease or diabetes diagnosis is measured in days or weeks, the report says.
One of the overarching issues is that there’s no co-ordinated system for dementia care in Canada, forcing patients and caregivers to steer through a “confusing maze of waitlists, untrained providers and scattered services,” the report says.
“The physicians and the system itself are not trained to recognize what these symptoms mean and how to pursue a diagnosis for it,” said Saskia Sivananthan, a neuroscientist who co-authored the report and co-founded the Brainwell Institute.
Patients and families with young-onset dementia often face additional stigma, skepticism and reluctance to diagnose from doctors, causing them to go through long wait-lists and a revolving door of specialists as their condition deteriorates. Part of this is because dementia is still often seen as an “older person’s disease,” Sivananthan said.
“People are really left to figure things out for themselves,” Sivananthan said. “And that’s not how a system should be set up for a disease like this.”
The stakes are high. Dementia is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in Canada, and with an aging population, the number of Canadians living with dementia is expected to rise from 770,000 to nearly one million in five years. Dementia is a group of symptoms caused by various underlying conditions, marked by cognitive decline, with Alzheimer’s disease being the most common.
Be careful who you trust America...
She waited five years to get diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Canada is falling behind on supporting people with dementia, new report finds
The average wait time for diagnosis is 21 to 28 months and patients face a system lacking co-ordination, says a report by the Brainwell Institute.
www.thestar.com
Phyllis Fehr waited five years to get diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
When that day finally came, she remembers how her doctor looked past her, didn’t speak to her, and told her husband “Bring her back when she can’t dress herself.”
Speaking from her home in Hamilton, Fehr recalled that moment.
“It’s very dehumanizing,” Fehr said.
“You feel like ‘Oh my God, maybe I am worse than I think I am. Maybe I can’t make decisions … it makes you question absolutely anything and everything that happens.”
It’s an experience that is all too common for people with dementia in Canada, who are often left to fend for themselves and are forced to navigate a fragmented pathway to treatment and care, according to a new report by the Brainwell Institute. Canada is falling behind other countries in supporting people with dementia, from prevention to diagnosis to end-of-life care, says the report, called “Mind the Gap — Closing the Care Divide for Canadians with Dementia.”
Canada was the last country in the G7 to release a national dementia strategy, in 2019 and the average wait time, from the onset of symptoms to receiving a formal diagnosis, is 21 to 28 months — among the longest in the G7. In contrast, the average wait time for a cancer, heart disease or diabetes diagnosis is measured in days or weeks, the report says.
One of the overarching issues is that there’s no co-ordinated system for dementia care in Canada, forcing patients and caregivers to steer through a “confusing maze of waitlists, untrained providers and scattered services,” the report says.
“The physicians and the system itself are not trained to recognize what these symptoms mean and how to pursue a diagnosis for it,” said Saskia Sivananthan, a neuroscientist who co-authored the report and co-founded the Brainwell Institute.
Patients and families with young-onset dementia often face additional stigma, skepticism and reluctance to diagnose from doctors, causing them to go through long wait-lists and a revolving door of specialists as their condition deteriorates. Part of this is because dementia is still often seen as an “older person’s disease,” Sivananthan said.
“People are really left to figure things out for themselves,” Sivananthan said. “And that’s not how a system should be set up for a disease like this.”
The stakes are high. Dementia is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in Canada, and with an aging population, the number of Canadians living with dementia is expected to rise from 770,000 to nearly one million in five years. Dementia is a group of symptoms caused by various underlying conditions, marked by cognitive decline, with Alzheimer’s disease being the most common.
