Pandemic made access to medical care, support challenging for dementia patients

In Bengaluru, the number of people with dementia is around 46,000: Report

In India, it is estimated that one in 27 people (5.3 million) above the age of 60 had dementia in 2020, according to the Dementia in India 2020 report published by the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI). This is projected to rise to 7.6 million by 2030. Also, in Karnataka, 2.25 lakh elders have dementia, while in Bengaluru, the number of people with dementia is around 46,000. And for this population, the COVID-19 pandemic has been, to put in milder terms, challenging.

“Dementia requires prolonged management and support. The pandemic made access to medical care and dementia management extremely challenging. Moreover, the closing of daycare services, no admissions at residential and respite centres further enhanced the burden of caring for family members. People with dementia are at high risk of mortality due to COVID-19 which was evident in care homes in the West which were worst-affected during both waves of the pandemic. We faced a similar challenge in our residential care homes and we had to make significant changes to tackle infections,” said Radha S. Murthy, managing trustee, Nightingales Medical Trust (NMT).

P.T. Sivakumar, professor and head of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS, echoed the difficulty in accessing support services and threw light on the patients’ difficulty in cooperating with restrictions due to COVID 19. “Most of our patients are home-bound, but those with behavioural problems would not listen to restrictions due to the lockdown, etc. Patients of dementia developing COVID-19 too found it challenging to get treatment in isolation. Many found it difficult to be away from their family and were confused in an unfamiliar place,” he said.