Throughout Europe are soaring people with memory disorders. Only in Italy is estimated that 800,000 people suffer from dementia, and by 2050 their number will double.

Since 1907, when the neurologist Alois Alzheimer described the first example of this disease in his patient confused and forgetful, this “disease” has quickly changed from medical rarity to a real social problem. Currently it is estimated that suffer from dementia by five to nine percent of the elderly, and in Italy the people affected are almost 800,000, of which more than half are affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

Much of dementia occurring in later life, almost always after the eightieth birthday. Have a labile memory does not mean, of itself, suffering from dementia. In addition to memory impairment, with difficulty remembering things or concentrating, symptoms of the disease include joint in the loss of language, the decline of intelligence and emotional involvement, the disorientation and personality changes.

In the early stages is not easy to determine whether the failure of the memory are a sign “normal” age or a real dementia. As mentioned, the most common form of dementia – which is found in three quarters of the cases – is Alzheimer’s disease, which usually occurs after age 60. One of the first symptoms is the inability to store new information, making it difficult to handle unusual situations to the patient.

Soon, however, begins to feel uncomfortable or disoriented even in normal situations or family. Unfortunately, the current state of Alzheimer’s disease is not curable, but at least it always better to control the symptoms, first teaching patients some strategies to address the daily needs, and secondly their prescribing of new generation drugs can to delay the progression of the disease, but of course only on condition of having diagnosed at an early stage.

However, if you do not register early, substantial progress in the prevention and treatment of dementia, the increase of the average expected worldwide in the coming years will increase the number of people affected at ever more pressing.

That’s why many people believe that dementia is becoming one of the toughest challenges for social medicine and health policy, not to mention that the greatest burden of care of patients with dementia continues to weigh on the shoulders of family members, forced to suffer the consequences of the disease extent as severe as the patients themselves.