ABSTRACT
The focus of healthcare provision in the Western world has shifted over time due to a significant increase in the average life span. This increase is as a result of a number of factors including environmental improvements, provision of social services, effective health promotion and improved diet. Significant advances in modern medicine have resulted in the cure or prevention of many life-threatening infectious diseases as well as the development of numerous treatments that can control or alleviate the symptoms of chronic disease. This longer life expectancy has resulted in the expansion of the elderly sector of the population and an increase in illness associated with ageing. Consequently, dementia sufferers, being predominantly elderly people, have become an increasingly important subgroup of the population, with recent estimates suggesting that there are currently 20 million dementia sufferers worldwide, a figure that is expected to double by the year 2025.1 Of these 40 million, 56 per cent will be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is the fourth most common cause of death in the Western world after heart disease, cancer and strokes. It is not surprising, therefore, that dementia is considered to be a major public health problem and is an increasingly important target area for medical and pharmaceutical research.
