NEXT MONTH, A PRIVATE DEVELOPER WILL SEEK PERMISSION TO BUILD KINGSTON'S FIRST LONG-TERM HOME THAT SPECIALIZES IN ALZHEIMER'S AND OTHER FORMS OF DEMENTIA.
INCREASING CASES OF DEMENTIA ARE A WORRISOME TREND THAT EXPERTS SAY CITIES LIKE KINGSTON ARE NOT
CURRENTLY EQUIPPED TO HANDLE.
NEWSWATCH'S STEPHANIE WILKINS
TAKES AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE ISSUE.
Alheimer's and Dementia - diseases that used to target the elderly are now taking hold of a different age group.
Dr. Angela Garcia, Dementia Expert, Queens Professor:
"One of the things I've noticed in the last five years or so is that many more patients who are younger are coming up to the clinic, younger than 65. It used to be the patient aged 80, 75, 85 that would be coming to the clinic."
Kingston is an aging city, with a new municipally funded report estimating that 44 percent of our population will be over the age of 55 in the next decade.
Canada's health care system estimates that 8 percent of the aging population is currently diagnosed with a Dementia based disease - for the Kingston region that equates to just over 43 hundred residents in our area that will be diagnosed in the next ten years.
According to Queen's Professor Angela Garcia that number is expected to sky rocket and the system isn't prepared.
Dr. Angela Garcia, Dementia Expert, Queens Professor:
"The governments are preparing however they are preparing very slowly and there is no question that there is going to be an impact on the economics of health care because we know even doubling the number of patients of Alzheimers disease or Dementia within the next 30 years or so, the cost of that is ten times higher than what it is today."
and American based businesses are taking notice, with an Alzheimer's and Dementia home in the planning stages in Kingston's West end.
Carl Sanders, JEA Senior Living:
"We are bringing a specialized Alzheimer care centre to Kingston and that would be a 66 bed community licensed as a retirement home that would be constructed specifically for those with Alzheimer's and other forms of Dementias."
Stephanie Wilkins:
"JEA is expanding here because the limestone city meets its business requirements when it comes to our aging demographic, the income estimates for area seniors as well as land availability and price.
The private sector company sees anopportunity in Kingston to make money where the public sector is falling short."
Something this doctor finds concerning.
Dr. Angela Garcia, Dementia Expert, Queens Professor:
"The private sector is there to make money on terms of the health care and the people with this disease are unfortunate enough not to have to pay on top of that."
now that a municipal Seniors Report has been completed a need for more age friendly services in the greater Kingston area is evident.
Cheryl Hitchen Manager, Social Planning and Policy, City of Kingston:
"The needs of the boomers as they age are very different than today's current seniors. both in terms of how they communicate and what type of information that they want. what kind of services they want. So we are trying to be strategic and plan ahead, we need to try and get ahead of the curve although we are kind of at the curve."
Diane Luck. Executive Director, Seniors Association Kingston Regional:
"We thought, we had hoped that society would have been ready for seniors by the time 'baby boomers' became retirement age but we're finding that we're not ready for the crunch that's going to hit in the next few years."
and as the city and the country address a changing need for seniors and a disease that is expected to double its number of victims in the next thirty years, the answers we don't have become problematic.
Dr. Angela Garcia, Dementia Expert, Queens Professor:
"We know very little about the brain, we know much more now than ten years ago tremendous amounts more and still we know so little."
Stephanie Wilkins CKWS Newswatch, Kingston.