Dementia Treatment and Management: The Decisive Role of Primary Care Physician Practice
Dementia is a life-threatening condition typically characterized by dysfunction in intellectual domains of human existence including language, cognition, memory, and visuospatial ability. On average, 10 percent of adults aged 65 and above are suffering from dementia. Interestingly, 50 percent of elderly persons aged 90 and above are believed to have acquired this syndrome. Recent studies add that this condition poses catastrophic challenges to primary care physicians (PCPs) in the modern healthcare sector (American Diabetes Association, 2017). As the larger portion of the global population, particularly in the Asian and Western hemispheres, continue to age at unprecedented rates, the number of people suffering from dementia is bound to increase. At the moment, the global tally of demented patients lies at 24 million, and it is expected to increase to 52 and 81 million by 2030 and 2040 respectively. Such an alarming trend has been affirmed by the World Health Organization’s sentiments on Alzheimer’s, a condition rightly categorized under dementia. According to this body, Alzheimer’s is highly likely to become the leading factor behind disability among the elderly. In the United States alone, the population affected by this phenomenon has reached at least 5.3 million, and it is projected to triple within 50 years.
Apart from the noteworthy risk of deaths, the high prevalence rates have a substantial impact on the economic burden on both the patients’ families and the nations at large. In a recent clinical survey, Judge, et al. (2019) found that dementia costed between 100 and 150 billion dollars on an annual basis. As devastating as it sounds, this figure is on a steady increase due to the number of elderly people in the country. A somewhat similar trend has been witnessed in Europe, Wolters and colleagues (2020) argue that the region spends approximately 104 billion dollars in national care interventions. Such initiatives are necessary considering the fact that some dementia patients experience cognitive challenges that can be reversed through early diagnosis and therapeutic solutions. In attempt to promote efficacy in the resolution of such cases, clinical practitioners are urged to reflect on the role of the primary care physicians. Judge, et al. (2019) define PCPs as the bridge between patients and the healthcare system. They are the professional care providers that equip primary care providers (mainly patients’ families/guardians) with essential information and skills for the management of their patient in unmonitored settings such as homes.
On this note, this paper proposes a research project that investigates the decisive role of primary care physicians on the recovery process of patients suffering from dementia. For the sake of clarity, discussion on these practitioners will be tethered around their approaches to office-based encounters among all stakeholders including the patients, family care, diagnosis, management, emotional support, and service linkage. This project will enhance both the researcher’s and the audience’s grasp of this matter while responding to the question below:
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