Funding for dementia research to double in next 12 years

The annual funding for dementia research will double to £132m by 2025 however, this will still leave dementia studies 'significantly behind'.

14:51 11 December 2013

Dementia, which affects thousands of people in the UK every single year, is now being dubbed as the “next global health time bomb.” Amid growing concerns of its effect to the elderly, it was announced that the annual funding for the research of this disease will double to £132m by 2025.

BBC Health and Science reporter James Gallagher said: “Dementia is heading towards being the biggest health and care problem of a generation so you'd think it would have the funding to match. Yet it really is the poor relation of other diseases.”

According to research, the number of people affected by dementia is expected to reach 135 million by 2050.

Sufferers are left requiring full-time care as brain function wastes away.

The UK is planning to spend £66m on 2015 on relevant research; this is just 1/8 of the figure that is spent on cancer research.

Author Sir Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2008, told the BBC's Newsnight "a lot more" money should be spent on dementia research and care.