National Responsibility Policy for Dementia Care: Current and Future

With the world's fastest-growing aged population, dementia care has become a major public health concern in Korea, prompting the emergence of the policy of national responsibility for dementia care. Over the past one year since the introduction of the new policy, it has shown its strengths and weaknesses. Now is the time for us to put the current status of this policy into perspective in terms of the benefits for patients and caregivers as well as the cost-effectiveness in the management of dementia. In addition, we will suggest the optimal quality control system and education program for dementia care hospitals, highlighting the critical role of neurologists for the success of the national responsibility policy for dementia care.

What is needed for the success of national responsibility for dementia

Dementia is a chronic, disabling illness which is most feared by elderly people. Dementia causes heavy caregiver burden on the family. Dementia also imposes much burden on the society, making it one of the major public health problem in many countries. Actually, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recommended to pose a priority to dementia management as a public health task. As the Korean population is rapidly aging, there is a rapid increase of people with dementia in Korea. In Korea, the people with dementia doubles every 15 years, and the economic burden of care for dementia doubles every 10 years. To cope with this rapidly increasing burden of dementia, Korean government has launched: plan for national responsibility for dementia. The plan is composed of distributing dementia reassuring center nationwide, setting up dementia reassuring hospital, and decreasing the burden of paid money for medical treatment and long-term care for dementia. The major hurdles in implementing the plan and the strategies to overcome such hurdles by public-private collaboration are suggested.