DEMENTIA LOSES OUT TO CANCER.

Recent poll reveals Cancer patients receive more care and money then those with dementia.

£27,647. No that isn't how much Simon Cowell earns every time he breaks wind; it's actually the total cost your typical dementia patient costs to keep breathing for another twelve months.

To put that into perspective, that's five times more than a cancer patient and eight times more than somebody with heart disease. The shocking figure was recently released by the Alzheimer's Research Trust after a BBC investigation.

There are currently 821,884 people in the UK who, um, er...you know...what are we talking about? OK, make that 821,885 people in the United Kingdom who suffer from the condition and to save you doing the maths that equals a hefty sum of £23bn being spent every year on the mentally ill patients.

The figure is expected to rise above the one million mark by 2025. We can't be bothered to work out how much per year that will cost the UK economy, but it's a 'lot of money'!

Referring back to the Big C the clever-clogs at the University of Oxford have come to the finding that £295 is spent per every Cancer patient compared to £61 with those with dementia.

So why are the figures so low for dementia sufferers? Alastair Gray is the professor of health economics at Oxford Uni and shares his theory...

"Many of us know people who have had cancer or heart disease but have been successfully treated and survived, so there is a perception that something can be done, and that more research will allow even more to be done."

"In contrast there are no cures for dementia at present; there are not even many ways of delaying it or slowing it down, so there may well be a feeling of inevitability surrounding it. However the lack of effective treatments is surely an argument for devoting more effort to research, not less.” he said.

It is hoped that by next year the government will be investing nearly £1bn into health research, but we will believe that when we see it!

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