The WHO has defined them as a “world public health priority”: for this reason dementia, and the urgency of concrete interventions, will be the protagonists at the G7 Health Summit in Ancona tomorrow. “For a year, Ancona will therefore be the European capital for brain health, effectively becoming a city-point of reference for a new project which sees Italy join a Manifesto for brain health together with countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Norway , Finland, Denmark and India. A manifesto that as Sin we fully share. Finally, perception, sensitivity and awareness on certain issues are changing.” Thus to Adnkronos Salute the president of the Italian Society of Neurology (Sin), Alessandro Padovani, on the eve of the G7 Health.
The countries that are part of the G7 “have in common the aging of the population – explains Padovani – and higher longevity rates compared to the rest of the world. This places a strong focus on the problem of age-related diseases and there is no There is no doubt that dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease in particular, represent a major concern. Estimates predict that in Western countries within the next 20-25 years there will be a doubling of the population with dementia. This would mean for Italy have almost 2.5 million elderly people affected by cognitive impairment. Today the overall social welfare and healthcare costs for these diseases amount to 23 billion euros, a figure that could exceed the 50 billion euros borne by the NHS if the figure is reached in Italy. 30% of over 65s with a form of dementia”.
As also requested by the Alzheimer’s Federation, Alzheimer’s disease will be at the center of the work of the G7 Health “because we still do not have effective treatments for this pathology – Padovani points out – and because once again we must understand what mechanisms are at the basis. However, in recent years we have understood much more from the point of view of possible therapies.” Among these, “some drugs that other agencies in Europe have approved. We will talk about prevention with regards to dementia in general, assistance, strategies, technologies and early diagnosis – underlines the president of neurologists – which today allows us to be able identify patients at the beginning of the disease and that perhaps, this is our hope, one day we could intercept them before the disease manifests itself”.
As the Italian neurology society, “we have created the Italian strategy platform on brain health – announces Padovani – involving numerous scientific societies, associations of psychologists, doctors, pharmacists, associations of patients with neurological pathologies, rare diseases, dementia and multiple sclerosis. We have tried to define some objectives: first of all, information, training of operators, education and investments in research. This last point the European Community has recently decided to make brain health its priority and has invited the Member States to participate numerous funds are probably foreseen for research calls and there is no doubt that the world of health, healthcare and research will be able to find an alliance in some way to make Italy a cutting-edge country”.
And to underline the importance of brain health, Padovani recalls “the slogan coined by Sin ‘One Brain, One Health’. With what is foreseen by the Ministry of Health, everyone must contribute to the well-being of the brain: psychologists, psychiatrists, child neuropsychiatrists, geriatricians, internal medicine doctors, ophthalmologists, ENT doctors, dentists, we will also talk about this at the G7 Health in Ancona”, he concludes.
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