[attach id=266458 size="medium"]Charles Scerri has been tasked to revise the national strategy on dementia. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli[/attach]

Researcher and senior lecturer Charles Scerri has been appointed as the national focal point for dementia to develop a national strategy by the end of the year.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly Franco Mercieca said during a press conference that a draft of the national dementia strategy had already been presented in January of 2010, but had been shelved.

The Government, he added, was committed to fight dementia for the sufferers – which amount to 1.2 per cent of the population – and their relatives. There are some 5,200 people with dementia, and this number will increase to 14,000 in the next 25 years.

“If we do not tackle it now, we will have a larger problem as the population continues to age,” Dr Mercieca said.

Dr Scerri, who was the general secretary of the Malta Dementia Society, will help revise the national strategy draft. He said once an updated one was drawn by the end of the year, it would be presented for public consultation with the main stakeholders, which included relatives of sufferers.

For every person with dementia, there were three other people who were directly involved, he said.

The strategy will tackle community services, awareness of symptoms to strengthen timely diagnosis, and training not just of professionals but also of community members, among others. Dr Scerri will also look into internationally approved treatment that is not yet all available in Malta.

There are some 100 types of dementia, and while the most common is Alzheimer’s disease there are other types that affect 20- and 30-year-olds.

Dementia is also the medical condition that costs the most worldwide: some $600 billion per year, which is expected to triple in the next 25 years.

In Malta, dementia expenditure reaches between €60 million and €90 million every year.

Two-thirds of this is “informal care”, which is what people spend to take care of their relatives with dementia at home and in the community.