Memory clinic book gives guidance on dementia

China's first memory clinic guidance book was released on Sunday to help the in-creasing number of the coun-try's elderly population suffering from dementia.

The book provides specific guidance on early detection, Alzheimer's disease screen-ing, treatment for different conditions, and also guide-lines for patient's manage-ment and nursing care. Ex-perts from the United States and Europe also contributed to this book.

"As far as I know, no such guidance book has yet been released in either Europe or the US. For a country like China, which holds the greatest number of elderly people in the world, the book means a lot," said Andreas Monsch, Head of Memory Clinic University Hospital Basel.

China now has 128 mem-ory clinics serving its 1.3 billion population, and most are located in coastal areas. "Compared with the situation in Switzerland where 8 mil-lion people share 39 memory clinics, such clinics in China are still in great demand," he said.

The guidance book re-leased a quick screening form that only takes five minutes for doctors to detect patients with higher risks of getting Alzheimer's disease.

"Previously, doctors al-ways felt it was difficult to diagnose the disease by sim-ply asking questions to test a patient's memory and the average time of diagnosis in China was about 10 minutes due to the large number of patient visiting. The form save lots of time," said Zhang Zhenxin, doctor from Peking Union Medical College Hos-pital.

Treatment rate of Alz-heimer's disease in big cities, such and Beijing and Shang-hai doubled from 2001 to 2007 to reach 20 percent, according to Zhang. But she estimated that those who came to a hospital only ac-counted for 10 percent of all patients in China.

"Memory impairment among elderly people is usu-ally believed to be a normal condition. In fact, it is never normal and requires clinical testing," said Monsch. "For those who live in rural areas, more medical assistance is needed."

In Beijing, doctors started to cooperate with residential community and volunteer groups to carry out early de-tection in 2009. Apart from medical treatment, experts on music treatment and exercise therapy also help to treat pa-tients with dementia.

Statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs show that the number of Chinese citizens aged 60 and above will reach 250 million in 2020, repre-senting 17 out of every 100 persons.

The prevalence of Alz-heimer's in China is about 5 percent in people aged over 65. But the rate soars dra-matically to 20 percent among people aged over 80. The World Health Organiza-tion estimates Alzheimer's patients in China will hit 11.7 million in 2020, which means that one-out-of-every-10 Alzheimer's patients world-wide will be Chinese.

Dementia includes a group of symptoms — including loss of memory, judgment, language and other intellec-tual functions — caused by the permanent damage or loss of the brain's nerve cells or neurons.

The cause of the conditions can be one or more of several diseases. Alzheimer's disease has proved to be the most common cause of dementia in people over the age of 65.