Money spent on dementia and stroke too low, say researchers

Analysis of funding for research into the four main causes of death and disability in the UK - cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke - found just 10 per cent was allocated to dementia and seven per cent to stroke research.

The study, led by researchers at Oxford University, said this was despite these conditions having huge economic and personal impact, with the social care costs of dementia outweighing that of the other three conditions combined.

The combined amount of research funding allocated by the Government and charities to all four conditions came to £855 million in 2012, almost two-thirds of which (64 per cent or £546m) was spent on cancer.

Around one fifth (19 per cent or £165m) was devoted to heart disease, with £85m on dementia and £58m on stroke research.

That same year, there were around 2.3m cases of cancer, the same number of coronary heart disease cases, 800,000 cases of dementia and 1.2m of stroke, the study said.

The costs of healthcare were highest for cancer (£4.4 billion) and lowest for dementia, at £1.4bn, while stroke was £1.8bn.

But researchers found that the social care costs of dementia outweighed the social care costs of the other three conditions combined.

And the combined costs of health and social care for dementia came to £11.6bn in 2012, they calculated.

This was more than double the equivalent costs for cancer at £5bn, and significantly more than for stroke (£2.9bn) and coronary heart disease (£2.5bn).

This means that for every £10 of health and social care costs attributable to each condition, £1.09 in research funding was spent on cancer, 65p on coronary heart disease, 20p on stroke, and just 7p went on dementia.

The study, which is published in the British Medical Journal, said the amount of Government money pumped into dementia and stroke research in the UK has risen significantly in recent years, but the sums allocated by charities have scarcely changed since 2008.

Its authors suggested public preferences towards cancer charities might be due to people seeing dementia and stroke as inevitable aspects of ageing compared to cancer and heart disease.

“Although there has been much progress by Government to increase levels of research funding for dementia and stroke, these areas remain underfunded when compared with the burden of disease,” the study concluded.

Hilary Evans, director of external affairs at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “While there have been welcome moves to increase Government funding for dementia research in recent years, these figures show that research into the condition still needs greater investment in proportion to its impact on society.

“Alzheimer’s Research UK is leading the way in tackling this challenge - since 2008, we have more than doubled our annual commitment to research and we have ambitious plans to do more.

“Research is making real progress, but we need to see a commitment from all quarters to ensure that the advances being made can be harnessed to help transform lives.

“It will be vital for the next government to make dementia research a priority if we are to defeat the condition once and for all.”