In this episode of Smart Health, we travel to Ireland to hear from a family whose life was turned upside down by Alzheimer's and find out what the EU is doing to help the 8 million Europeans who suffer from the disease.
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00:00 Back in 2015, retired civil servant Gerry Paley started to feel and act differently.
00:07 He was 59.
00:10 If I get things, I might have to go out somewhere to get a message and I couldn't remember what
00:17 the message was.
00:20 You'd be anxious about things as well.
00:22 Yeah, I'd be worrying about certain things.
00:27 You would say more, wouldn't you?
00:34 I think Gerry kind of lost his confidence, an awful lot of his confidence.
00:40 And he also lost... yeah, he just couldn't... he wasn't able to... I would say he wasn't
00:47 sure of what he was doing anymore.
00:56 He was making big mistakes, doing things, missing kind of very logical stuff.
01:03 Gerry was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia.
01:15 The disease has no known cure.
01:18 Existing medicines available in Europe can just help treat symptoms related to memory
01:23 or behaviour.
01:24 The medication is doing well for me.
01:27 I'm walking all the time with my dog and outdoor all the time.
01:34 So that exercise is good.
01:39 Gerry lives near Dublin, Ireland's capital.
01:42 He's one of the some 8 million EU citizens living in the labyrinth of dementia.
01:49 This number is expected to almost double by 2050.
01:56 With no cure at hand, patients can only rely on daily activities to try to improve their
02:02 quality of life.
02:04 This centre provides services to some 30 people living with dementia.
02:11 People have the condition, they could live up to 25 years, so they want to have quality
02:16 of life.
02:16 We would always recommend that people see their consultant every six months and get
02:20 a medical review.
02:22 Sometimes we can even see the need for that here and we would recommend people to return
02:25 to their care team.
02:29 The development of therapies which can prevent or slow the progression of dementia is an
02:33 active area of research, with promising medicines currently in development.
02:38 But relevant breakthroughs are still elusive.
02:46 The European Commission has proposed a legal framework to encourage medicine developers
02:51 to invest more into what's known as unmet medical needs like Alzheimer's.
02:57 The primary incentive is an additional six months of data protection for those products.
03:03 Developers who deliver would also be eligible for strengthened scientific and regulatory
03:07 support, explains from Brussels, the European Commissioner for Health.
03:13 What we need to do ultimately is to support innovation because that will benefit patients
03:20 with challenging diseases like Alzheimer's and others and you need to make sure that
03:25 you're developing new medicines all the time.
03:29 Once medicines are developed, the European Union should also ensure all patients can
03:34 access them. Both the European Commission and experts agree.
03:39 There's no point in us having these breakthroughs which are hopefully on the horizon and our
03:42 health systems in Ireland and across Europe aren't ready because these drugs will be very
03:47 expensive for people to access so we need to start thinking now about how are we going
03:51 to pay for them, how are we going to get our health systems ready and this work needs to
03:55 start now.
03:57 Gerry and Nuala just hope this work will prove effective.
04:03 I do feel that we do need to kind of work on it a bit harder because it is a big problem.
04:10 It's costing a lot of money to research and to get medication.
04:17 And to keep people in...
04:20 In hospitals.
04:22 But if it was diagnosed earlier, which it should be, I mean if you go to a doctor when
04:29 you're a child and you're progressing, the doctor should be able to see something change
04:34 in the person and then can catch it early rather than let it happen when you get older.
04:40 And it's too late then. All you're doing is getting medication to keep yourself on a level
04:47 as if you got the medication, proper medication, you could be able to resolve the problem.
04:54 Yeah, exactly.
04:56 (upbeat music)