More must be done for Dementia patients - Öpik

11.12.39am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 23rd Apr 2008

Montgomeryshire MP Lembit Öpik has signed a parliamentary motion supporting the campaign by Terry Pratchett and the Alzheimer's Research Trust to urgently increase Government funding of Alzheimer's disease research.

Lembit Öpik praises Terry Pratchett's $1 million donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust (ART), and is concerned that research funding is so much lower than for other diseases, like cancer. Commenting, he said:

"I'm deeply concerned about the underfunding of dementia research. There are over 700,000 people with dementia in the UK - 787 of whom live in Montgomeryshire - and the figures are rising, but only 2% of government medical research funding is allocated to Alzheimer's and other dementias. Great advances in our understanding of the disease and new approaches to treatment and prevention are being made here in the UK.

"Despite Terry's desire to 'kick a politician in the teeth', I'm supporting his campaign with the Alzheimer's Research Trust to ensure that funding for dementia research increases significantly."

For every person with Alzheimer's, £11 is spent each year on UK research compared with £289 for each cancer patient, even though similar numbers of people are affected. This donation will fund promising UK research which hopes to find ways to slow down or halt the disease.

Alzheimer's disease costs the UK more in care than cancer, stroke and heart disease combined but receives only a tenth of the Government research funding allocated to cancer. Alzheimer's is set to affect twice as many people within a generation as the population ages.