Does dementia attack the rich?
When you get dementia, does it make a difference if you are rich or poor?
Well, some forms of dementia are relentless, no matter what your circumstances. An example of that is the inherited form of Alzheimer's disease that affected the main character in the movie Still Alice. She was a well off, well-educated woman who inherited a form of dementia that struck her when she was middle-aged. She couldn't escape it.
“Staying in your own home in a familiar environment with 24 hour trained carers would be ideal, but the cost of that would be immense and you’d need a big house. ”
When someone has any of the diseases that cause dementia, they seem to be able to resist the symptoms for longer if they have lots of previous education, so a person who studied a lot and had extra brain capacity might have earned a lot of money and at the same time be able to resist dementia. The late and much vilified politician Margaret Thatcher had two university degrees and was well off, but dementia affected her eventually, so perhaps we could say that she'd have been affected earlier if she'd not had all that education and a comfortable old age with lots of people to care for her. That supports the theory that richer people survive dementia better. They also get better access to education.
We know that if you can socialise, eat well, have exercise and live in a well-designed place, you will live better with dementia, and it may be that those things are more available to you if you are better off. Staying in your own home in a familiar environment with 24 hour trained carers would be ideal, but the cost of that would be immense and you'd need a big house. A low-income old lady in a small flat couldn't have that.
Areas with significant economic hardship
One GP in an area with significant economic hardship about ten years ago told me that there was not much dementia in his practice, because most of his patient population did not live long enough to get dementia. They died young of heart disease, substance misuse, violence, cancer, and accidents. The exception was those who had given themselves dementia from alcohol consumption. ARBD (alcohol related brain damage) is sometimes called the only preventable form of dementia and some of his patients got it quite young. They still died young, but they got one of the few working age types of dementia. Many of them also had head injuries from fights or falls while intoxicated. Head injuries also cause one of the preventable dementias.
Right now, when local authorities are restricting the amount of money they give to care homes to look after old people, we are starting to see people dying earlier than we thought. It seems that having enough money spent on your care helps to keep you well. Having your own money to spend on a care home gives you a choice to live well for longer, even if it disappoints the people who thought they’d inherit your pot. Think about it.
