The Ambassador for Alzheimer's Australia, Ita Buttrose, says many pensioners who have Alzheimer's disease are, in her words, "pretty well stuffed" – in other words, in a dire situation.
Ms Buttrose says high quality care is only available to those who can afford it.
Alzheimer's Australia estimates that by 2060, the cost of dementia associated diseases, like Alzheimer's, will cost 83 billion dollars and will represent around 11 per cent of health and residential aged care sector spending.
More than 300,000 Australians are living with dementia but that number is predicted to triple in the next 30 years partly because of the ageing population.
Ita Buttrose has told the National Press Club low income Australians with dementia are at a particular disadvantage - "They do have rights, they do have rights to a life and that's what they are not getting. It really concerns me that we are developing an aged care systems with haves and have-nots. If you've got money, you can get a really good aged care facility to look after you. If you haven't got money, if you're on the pension, you're pretty well stuffed."
She says dementia sufferers are some of the loneliest people in Australia because too often people assume little can be done for them.
She says it's a fact Australia's politicians should keep in mind when making decisions on how to tackle the dementia challenge - "Older people do vote and they do have a voice. And as John Watkins, our CEO of Alzheimer's New South Wales wrote in a very moving piece about aged care facilities, politicians get older too and they also get lonely and we'd like to remind them of that."
Doctor Ron Petersen is director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre in the United States and a world leader in the field of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
He was also Ronald Reagan's physician and treated the former US President's Alzheimer's disease.
He told the National Press Club that worldwide there are 46 million people who have Alzheimers, a figure that's projected to increase to 131 million by the middle of the century.
He supports a push in the US for 2 billion dollars a year to be spent on Alzheimer's research - "A lot of money but in the context of other chronic diseases costly to the system, not out of proportion. In the US, cancer gets 5 to 6 billion dollars a year, HIV-AIDS gets 3 billion dollars a year, cardiovascular disease 2 to 3 billion dollars a year, diabetes one billion dollars. So, 2 billion for a disease that may bring down the system is certainly not unreasonable."
Doctor Petersen also advocates involvement from ethnic communities - "Ethnic group involvement and disparities in dementia and Alzheimer's disease are key. So we've engaged people from the American Indian country, so in America one of the members of the advisory council is the head of Indian affairs, because it's very important, the rates are different in different ethnic groups and we try to be inclusive with regard to those considerations."
