How well does your country approach Alzheimer’s support? New tool reveals all

Mrs Lee noticed it first in a grocery list. Her husband, a retired lawyer who once commanded a courtroom and remembered legal cases for years, began writing the same items two or three times on the list: bread, eggs, soap, eggs, butter, bread. At first, she ignored it – do we not all get scatty with age?

Perhaps her husband was distracted mid-list-writing. What was less easy to dismiss was when he forgot the way home from his local supermarket. It took the family 11 months and four different doctors to get a diagnosis – not because nobody suspected dementia (everybody did) but because no clear path led there.

A GP referred the couple to a specialist with a nine-month waiting list. A social worker, once they found one, was unaware of the community support that they could have taken advantage of. By the time someone mentioned extra support, Mr Lee’s disease had progressed from mild to moderate and his wife was exhausted, her own health deteriorating. Nobody along the way was negligent. There simply was not a map.

While Mr and Mrs Lee are a composite case, their struggle will be deeply familiar to many people who have experience of dementia: first the difficulty recognising and accepting what is happening to a loved one, and then the significant challenges in securing the right help at the right time.

Mapping dementia readiness

While there is often no map, there is now an atlas. The UK-based Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) has just launched the Alzheimer’s Disease Atlas (AD Atlas), a first-of-its-kind platform highlighting how countries diagnose, treat and support people living with dementia.