Lockdown worsens effects of dementia

DEATHS linked to dementia are continuing to rise, as charity workers warn that coronavirus has had a knock-on effect on people with the condition.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are the most common pre-existing conditions in the almost 20,000 care home residents who died with Covid-19 between March 2 and June 12, according to the Office for National Statistics.

However, researchers from the Alzheimer’s Society have found that almost a third of people (32 per cent) with dementia want to give up after deteriorating mentally and physically in lockdown.

A similar proportion also do not feel confident going outside as restrictions begin to loosen, according to a survey of almost 2,000 people with dementia and their carers in June.

Nearly half (45 per cent) said lockdown has caused their mental health to deteriorate, while 11 per cent have lost friends since the social distancing conditions were imposed, the society said.

And 46 per cent of unpaid carers said their loved ones are now feeling stressed, anxious or depressed. The charity’s support services have been accessed more than half a million times during lockdown, with 15,000 calls to the Alzheimer’s Society’s dementia connect support line.

Charity workers said that the suspension of normal life, and the knockon effect of the virus on mental health

“has likely resulted in the massive increase of ‘unexplained’ non-virus-re- lated deaths”. Unexplained “excess” deaths of people with dementia were 83 per cent higher in England, and 54 per cent higher in Wales in April, the charity added.

Up to an estimated 120,000 people live alone with dementia in the UK, and this is predicted to double by 2039.

Kate Lee, the Alzheimer’s Society’s chief executive, said: “It’s never been more important to ensure no one faces this crisis alone.”

45pc

The proportion of people with dementia who in a survey said that their mental health had deteriorated in lockdown