Is Wales Facing a Dementia Timebomb?

Two new research studies have found that people who have depression in younger life are at significant additional risk of developing dementia in older age. 

One study by Dr Jane Saczynski of the University of Massachusetts followed nearly 1,000 people over a 17 year period.  The study found that the risk of developing dementia following an episode of depression was significantly higher than for those who had not experienced depression.  A second study that followed 1,239 people looked at the number of episodes of depression a person had experienced during their lifetime.  This study found that the risk of developing dementia increases according to the number of episodes.

There does not seem to be a direct causal link between depression and dementia, although the symptoms of the two conditions are often mistaken for one another, suggesting that there may be some biological link.  Dr Jane Saczynski suggests that: "Inflammation of brain tissue that occurs when a person is depressed might contribute to dementia. Certain proteins found in the brain that increase with depression may also increase the risk of developing dementia."

These new studies, that follow earlier studies that suggested a link to Alzheimer's Disease, will be particularly alarming to a Welsh Assembly Government that is already struggling under the weight of public spending cuts imposed by the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition in Westminster.  With 9 percent of the population of Wales' ex-mining and steel areas in southeast and northeast Wales on long-term prescriptions for antidepressants, Wales can look forward to an explosion of dementia cases over the next 20-30 years.

The new studies will also raise questions about whether successive Welsh Assembly Governments have acted responsibly on the recommendations of the Wanless report that starkly stated that the threat posed by a Welsh population that is aging and largely unfit was that the costs of treatment would make a health service free at the point of delivery an impossibility in Wales after 2020.

The discovery of the link between depression (that affects between 10 and 16 percent of us at some time in our lives) and dementia, coming on top of the Disability Rights Commission findings of a significant additional risk of people with depression developing cardio-vascular diseases, means that Wales' failure to treat depression as a major public health problem will now load massive additional health and social care costs onto our grandchildren.