Women’s brain health
Did you know that dementia is the leading cause of death in women in Scotland?
In 2022, according to the National Records of Scotland, 4,139 women died of dementia – 66% of all female deaths in our country. It has overtaken heart disease, stroke and cancer as the most likely cause of death to be on your death certificate if you are a woman. Eight years ago, dementia overtook ischaemic heart disease as the leading cause of death. Yet we don’t talk about it.
It is thought there are currently 3000 people living with young onset dementia in Scotland and two thirds of these are likely to be women. Visit a care home, and the chances are that you will discover amongst the residents more women than men living with dementia. Carers are 60% more likely to be women. Yet we still don’t want to talk about the fact that dementia claims thousands of lives each year and affects 90,000 people in Scotland. Globally there are 55 million people living with dementia of which two thirds are women. Instead of whispering about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, it’s time to talk loud and clear about women’s brain health.
When my wonderful granny was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the 1980s, her final years were spent in a very austere and forbidding, almost Dickensian institution which I dreaded visiting but determinedly accompanied my mother whenever I could on her twice weekly visits. History repeated itself, when at much the same age as her own mother, and despite trying valiantly to hide her symptoms, my mum received her own dementia diagnosis.
Things had moved on however, and the care home my mother lived in for eight years was a completely different place to the dreadful wards that we visited granny in 20 years earlier. There was another significant difference - my mother had to pay for her care. We reckon her bill was over a quarter of a million pounds. My dad always said he was saving for a rainy day - well it was pouring when mum moved into her nice care home. Please name one other disease which costs you £250,000 of your own money.
Yet we still don’t talk about dementia.
I am planning on going with my sister to help with dementia research and to find out what lies ahead for both of us. Our family have no problem talking about dementia. We have lived with it, we have lived through it - and maybe will again. There’s no use pretending it’s not there. No point whispering about it, as far too many people still do.
The Scottish Government boasts cutting edge policies and leads the way globally in many respects. Yet it doesn’t want to talk about women’s brain health either. The Scottish Government abhors gender health inequalities and sets out very clearly in the Scottish Women’s Health Plan its very laudable and important aims and promises to improve the health and welfare of women in Scotland. What I don’t see once in the 47-page long document is one reference to that whispered word ‘dementia’. Why not? Can we not expect our government to respond to their own data and statistics?
The Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto, writes in the introduction to the most recent iteration of The Scottish Women’s Health Plan, that, “we know more needs to be done” and that there are “also specific areas where renewed and targeted focus is required”. We thoroughly agree and strongly urge that dementia needs to be that very specific focus.
It is not possible to have a Scottish Women’s Health Plan which excludes dementia - 51% of Scotland’s population are women. Current figures suggest that one in three women will develop some form of dementia. Unpaid carers, the majority of whom are women, prop up the creaking care system saving the government £13.1 billion per year, £360 million per day. It is estimated there are 800,000 unpaid carers in Scotland. And the workforce of paid carers is predominantly, women. Why are we not talking about this?
The new Scottish Women’s Health Plan affirms it has built a solid foundation for future work. Its conclusion asserts that the appointment of a Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, is both pivotal and vital to addressing the gender health inequalities that exist. We plead that dementia and women’s brain health can no longer be ignored when two out of three people with Alzheimer’s disease are women and for as long as dementia remains the most common cause of death in women in Scotland.
Not only are many dementias preventable but there are many interventions which are proven to slow and halt the progress of dementia. There is much to talk about around the positive work in brain health research, treatments, both medical and non-pharmaceutical. The Lancet Report, ‘Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care 2024’, confirms that “overall, around 45% of cases of dementia are potentially preventable by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors at different stages during the life course”. Why don’t we talk about that?
Dementia is not part of the natural ageing process. Dementia affects the brain, making it harder to remember things or think as clearly as before. It's an umbrella term for over 100 different types of illnesses and disease symptoms. Symptoms of dementia may include memory loss and difficulties with day-to-day tasks, language and problem-solving but a diagnosis should not be something that silences you or stops you from living well.
Let’s all agree that talking about dementia and being positive about women’s brain health is not only a very valuable thing to do but it is the best way forward.