Half of the people in Scotland with dementia don't know they have it

In January’s Dundee SDWG meeting, Dr Peter Connelly, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist with NHS Tayside, talked about how to improve the early diagnosis rates for dementia.

The study looks at ways to encourage people showing early symptoms of dementia to come forward:

• Community awareness of the symptoms needs to increase through health education projects like the “Keep Well” initiative
• Care homes need to be persuaded to take action when residents first develop symptoms of dementia
• We need to develop “brain care” services, particularly for high risk groups
• GPs need to be persuaded to actively watch for early symptoms and to be more involved in the assessment process.