The health-care crisis part 4: Dementia

In today’s Big Story podcast, even if we’ve made it through the worst of COVID, and no new infectious diseases emerge, our over-burdened healthcare system will still need to reckon with an aging population, and the torrent of health issues that will emerge among them. A new landmark study looking at the future prevalence of dementia has made clear the scale of the challenge we may face, and how ill-equipped the system is to meet it.

Dr. Brian Goldman authored the foreword on the study in question, he’s also an emergency room physician, the host of The Dose podcast on CBC, and someone with a wealth of personal experience when it comes to providing support for loved ones with dementia.

“We should take money out of long-term care and put more money into home care, if we do that, then we will… allow people with dementia to continue to live out their lives at home, where they prefer to be, with a lot less stress on the people who love them,” he said.

Due to a lack of resources, many of the early signs of dementia will go unnoticed or untreated. Eventually, these people will need a lot of care, and as things stand right now, we don’t have the people, or the facilities, to provide it. So how long do we have, and what should we do?

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