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Dementia stigma higher in Britain than US

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Date published: 
Monday, January 19, 2009
News source: 
Alzheimer’s Research Trust
Region: 
United Kingdom
Featured item on home page: 
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Man crossword dementia 

A new transatlantic study suggests that older adults in the UK are less willing to undergo dementia screening than their US counterparts because Britons perceive greater social stigma from diagnosis of the disease than Americans.

The UK’s leading dementia research charity, the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, described the findings as a “call to action”.

The research, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, surveyed 125 older adults in Indianapolis and 120 in Kent, England. No participants had dementia, but many more British participants knew close friends or relatives with dementia (48%, compared to 27% of the Americans).

Even accounting for education and race differences, Britons indicated greater concern with the stigma of diagnosis, potential loss of independence, and emotional suffering than their American counterparts.

Rebecca Wood, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “While there is no evidence that screening for dementia will help, this study highlights the important point that there is a stigma surrounding dementia.

“The persistence of this stigma should be a call to action for the government and society as a whole. In a sense, dementia today is where cancer was 30 years ago: too often swept under the carpet. Dementia is a caused by a disease and should be no cause of shame. The condition affects 700,000 people in the UK, and we need a substantial increase in research funding to stop this figure growing.”

 

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