Brussels, 20/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Adopting in Strasbourg on Wednesday 19 January 2011 the Matias Report on Alzheimer's disease, the European Parliament called by a thumping majority (646 to 6 with 6 abstentions) on the Council of Ministers to announce that dementia is a health priority for the European Union. The MEPs urge Member States to draw up special national programmes to deal with the social and healthcare consequences of dementia and provide aid for sufferers and their families, as is already done in several Member States which introduced plans for Alzheimer's and related diseases in 2008 on medical and social care and basic clinical research into the disease at national level.
The Parliament welcomed the EU's joint planning initiative being promoted by the Member States to boost research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases and urges the Commission to continue to introduce measures to tackle the health, social, technological and environmental problems encountered in treating such diseases. It points out the increasing age of the population in Europe and pressure on public spending and private productivity engendered by the increased cost of dealing with the ageing population will cause structural problems for the Member States. The European Union should therefore include in its long-term strategy a determined prevention policy covering both medicine and healthy lifestyles. The EP says it is certain that the early diagnosis tests recently proposed by the International Working Group on the New Criteria for Alzheimer's Disease, research into risk factors and early diagnosis indicators are crucially important. The Member States should therefore buckle down to defining, drawing up and introducing common protocols to set new early diagnosis indicators and introduce biomarkers for progression of the disease in order to take advantage of new dementia and pre-dementia therapies, to set a research agenda for neurodegenerative disease and to share best practice in research to reduce the inequalities between Member States and the postcode lottery within them when it comes to diagnosis and treatment. The EP encourages each Member State to set up specialist centres with satisfactory levels of medical equipment (like magnetic resonance imaging whose value for research into dementia is undeniable) across the country. It also stresses the importance of a multidisciplinary approach.
While recognising the huge support currently given by the European Union to 34 projects on neurodegenerative disease, with aid totalling €159 million, the EP feels that under the upcoming Eighth Framework Programme on R&D, the EU should remedy the fragmented nature of research into Alzheimer's and include projects on insufficiently researched areas of non-drug therapy, such as behaviour and cognitive therapy. The EP urges the Member States to set up an interconnected European network of reference centres through which high skill levels are channelled for dementia and Alzheimer's diagnosis, treatment and care to enable Member States to share and assess information.
In the six months prior to publication of the report, explains the rapporteur, Portugal's Marisa Matias (GUE/Nordic Left), some 700,000 people developed Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in the EU and the number of people suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia in general is likely to double every twenty years. She said that a situation would not be allowed to develop whereby there are first and second class patients because such diseases require round-the-clock care. It is women who are the most affected, directly or indirectly, by Alzheimer's because most of the carers are women and it is important that both patients and carers are supported.
Europe is getting old, dementia and related suffering is on the rise and action has to be taken, said EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, pointing out that the action being considered by the European Commission will cover prevention, research, information and defending the rights of patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease.
All the MEPs who spoke in the debate talked about the devastating impact and financial cost of dementia and the importance of early diagnosis recommended on behalf of the EPP by Romania's Elena Antonescu, who also called for a more multidisciplinary approach. Often, there is no diagnosis at all, explained Ireland's Nessa Childers for the S&D, and called for awareness-raising campaigns at EU level. Research projects exist, but they need to be improved and more needs to be done in the new EU research programme, said Belgium's Frédérique Ries on behalf of the ALDE. Finland's Satu Hassi (Greens/EFA) asked for research to see whether there was a connection between the incidence of Alzheimer's and the use of pesticides and other chemicals.
France's Philippe Juvin (EPP), an anaesthetist and university lecturer by training, said that keeping patients at home, in the environment they are used to, is a priority objective, which necessarily requires aid for the family, who can't be left to their own devices. Another priority, he said, is research, particularly into making good use of the outcome of research, and the various specialists and researchers need to communicate with one another and work together more effectively. (L.G/O.J. trans fl)