People with Alzheimer's dementia are often treated incorrectly or not at all in Germany. This emerges from the Innovation Report of the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) published Wednesday. In total, therefore, only 14 percent of those with dementia TK insured receive exclusively a drug for the treatment of the disease, a so-called anti-dementia drug.
Nine percent are treated with an antidementive drug and additionally with a sedative. One in four patients (26 percent) diagnosed with dementia receive sedatives only. Half of the patients remain untreated.
"This serious misuse with tranquilizers and the simultaneous undersupply of anti-dementia drugs can not be explained with the medical guidelines," says Bremen's health scientist Gerd Glaeske. Instead, "suspicion here is that demented people are simply sedated rather than treated properly." TK chief Jens Baas urged to urgently improve the care of people with dementia.
No cure yet discovered
In Germany, about 1.7 million people today are considered to be suffering from dementia. About two-thirds of them have Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia. The disease of the brain leads to the loss of mental functions such as thinking, language, judgment and orientation as well as the death or serious damage of brain cells, especially in the cerebral cortex.
The currently available dementia drugs only slow the progression of the disease but can neither stop it nor cure it. Associations such as the German Alzheimer's Association have been complaining for some time about a decline in Alzheimer's research in order to develop new therapies and medicines.
The fact that some large pharmaceutical companies such as the company Pfizer have completely stopped research in this area leaves the hope for a breakthrough in therapy in the distant future, according to the TK in their report.