Incurable health condition becomes Britain’s most feared disease over cancer
Jen Thomas
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
The world of medicine is fast moving, and when it comes to our health there are new treatments and cures developing all of the time.
There's one major - and sadly incurable - condition, which the British public now fears even more than cancer.
At-home care provider Home Instead carried out a survey of 4,000 people, including 1,600 family carers.
It took place over the course of a year, and the study looked at how we are feeling as a country about getting older and needing care.
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Cancer used to be the top fear in the UK for family carers, but over the duration of the study the worry dropped from 30 percent to 21 percent.
The disease has now been knocked off the top spot by a cruelly degenerative disease.
Dementia is now the most-feared condition, with around 31 percent of family carers worries about the condition.
This is a four percent increase from last year.
Over 60 percent of those surveyed want the government to declare dementia a health emergency.
Many are calling for a dedicated dementia allowance as well to help fund care for sufferers.
Martin Jones is the Home Instead chief executive, and he said: “Dementia has now eclipsed cancer as our greatest health fear for the future.
"Unlike cancer, where decades of research have shifted perceptions and care outcomes, dementia feels like a greater threat – a condition with no cure in sight.”
Nearly one in two Brits will be diagnosed with cancer, however treatments and cures for the condition keep developing, with Cancer Research UK reporting that survival rates have doubled in the past 50 years.
However, dementia sadly remains incurable.
One person develops dementia in the UK every three minutes, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.
David Thomas, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said "We are at a tipping point for dementia research, but we need the government to be more ambitious in tackling what is the UK’s biggest killer."
“Blood tests for Alzheimer’s are being trialled in parts of the NHS and more new drugs are being researched than ever before. These innovations have the potential to help us really get a grip on dementia and make the sort of progress we’ve seen with other conditions, like stroke and cancer.”
According to the NHS: “Huge strides have been made in understanding how different diseases cause damage in the brain and so produce dementia. And with increased funding over the past few years, there are now many more research studies and clinical trials taking place.
“Although a cure may be some years away, there are some very promising advances.”
A private treatment was licensed in the UK last year, called donanemab.
It was found to slow down memory decline in people with early Alzheimer's.
However, it was decided donanemab isn't suitable for NHS patients as it is too expensive.