Society with Cognitive Impairment

In preparing for super-aging society, there appeared serious scenario about quality of aged people. A research team in Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released New General Strategy on Cognitive Impairment, which predicted that one out of five people in sixty-five years old or older would have cognitive impairment in 2025. That disease has been putting great pressure on Japanese society, urging young agers more involved in taking care of the patient. The Ministry stresses the necessity of strengthening ties of local community.

Cognitive impairment is categorized in two types. One is caused by eventual death of nerve cells of brain, represented by well-known Alzheimer Disease. Another is brought by malfunction of blood flow in stem, causing partial death of cells. Advanced research found that diabetes doubles the risk of cognitive impairment. At the same time, patient of cognitive impairment is likelier to have diabetes. No remedy for the disease has been developed so far.

There were 4.62 million patients with age of 65 or older with cognitive impairment in 2012. The research of the team of MHLW found that they would increase as many as 6.75 million in 2025 and 8.5 million in 2060, if ratio of diabetes did not change. But, if the ratio of diabetes expands, the number of cognitive impairment patient will be 7.3 million in 2025 and 11.54 million in 2060. Nutrition for avoiding diabetes is a key to deal with the problem.

Taking care of cognitive impairment is very hard struggle. In case an aged wife suffers from the disease and her husband takes care of her, he needs to watch her twenty-four hours and seven days a week, because the patient will take unpredictable behavior such as wandering around the city. Some people who were recently found anonymous were suspected as having been missed while leaving home. There have been tragedies of murdering spouse with cognitive disease, totally exhausted in taking care of. There also increases the number of retirees who need to take care of parents, the phenomenon which erodes economic vitality.

Support for families is the key. The ministry is educating 60 thousands of medical doctors in local community who will support families with cognitive impairment patient in early level. Consultants will be deployed in every prefectural government offices by 2017. However, this is the concept to deal with the disease in the perspective of distributing money, which does not looking into fundamental reason. It is likely that diabetes is related to frustration or stress in daily life. If social separation between the rich and poor is worsened, friction in human relations will cause more patients. It is necessary for the government to guarantee more safe and comfortable life to reduce the risk of explosion of cognitive impairment.