preparing today to implement future dementia treatments

Today, around 850 000 people in the UK are living with dementia, costing the National Health Service (NHS) and UK society more than £26 million annually. By 2025, it is estimated that over 1 million people in the UK will be affected, with the prevalence and costs of care for these patients expected to double by 2050.

To provide evidence of the potential impact and to highlight the need to prepare now for future treatments, Alzheimer’s Research UK commissioned the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) to model five hypothetical treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. These were developed with advice from a clinical advisory group and reflect a likely treatment that may become available in the next five years as well as more speculative treatment scenarios, which were selected based on the direction of research.

This modelling is the 1rst of its kind and designed to provide a platform from which to start a conversation about preparing for future treatments and it highlights a number of areas that we need to consider. This work must begin now, both to make sure the changes that are currently being made in access to medicines policy will work for dementia, and to ensure that there are no delays to patient access when treatments show success in clinical trials.

We urgently need to come together and think differently to prepare the healthcare system for such treatments.

A new report from Alzheimer's Research UK released on March 21, Thinking Differently: Preparing to Implement Future Dementia Treatments, provides recommendations for the NHS and other key stakeholders to act now to strengthen the UK health-care infrastructure in anticipation of approval of a safe and efficacious therapy for Alzheimer's disease.