Noncommunicable Disease: Strategies for Dementia Funding and Carers

This report focuses on improving the quality of life for patients with advanced-stage dementia by addressing funding and carer education. It highlights the alarming increase in dementia cases and the underfunding of research compared to other diseases like cancer. The report proposes lobbying for increased funding through staff and volunteer meetings, press conferences, and special events. It also emphasizes the importance of educating carers on accessing funding and providing seamless support services. Furthermore, it outlines three activities to promote these strategies, including preparing written submissions, organizing meetings with officials, and developing a proper media strategy. The report underscores the significance of these efforts, given the growing number of dementia cases and the projected increase in the coming years, referencing statistics from Australia. References are provided to support the analysis.

Running head: NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASE
Noncommunicable disease
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASE
The project aims to improve quality of life in patients with advanced stage dementia
through their carers by:
1. Lobbying for increased funding
Census studies suggest that the percentage of people with dementia is increasing at an
alarming rate. However, dementia research is severely underfunded. The government spends
more money for cancer and cardiovascular research. The disease lingers for several years and
makes the cost extremely high. The lobbying board should agree on the formation of campaigns.
The expected results should be kept confidential. A budget should be developed for the
campaign. Increased funding can be lobbied by organizing staff and volunteer meetings, press
conferences, hosting special events like rallies and protests, employment of additional staff
members and public relations personnel (Knapp, Iemmi and Romeo 2013).
2. Educating carers on accessing funding
The persons suffering through dementia goes through a large scale of social and health
costs along with reduced quality of life and shorter life span that put impacts not only their
condition but also to the family members. The way of accessing the increased funding should be
educated to the carers (O’connell et al. 2012). Thus, with increased funding the carers should be
educated in providing seamless, planned and proactive support services in treating the individual
suffering through dementia. The different health boards should be trained to develop the care
pathways to provide the dementia patients with best possible care and assistance. The carers
should also be trained to conduct profound research on the occurrence and pathophysiology of
dementia with increased fund.

2NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASE
3 activities that will promote the strategies
 A clear written submission should be prepared based on research, consultation and
assessment possible and achievable outcomes. The submission must be precise and
contain the key arguments along with relevant examples and data that relate low
dementia funding to improper care. The reasons well as the reasons for granting your
request. The submission should contain accurate data to justify the purpose of granting
more funds and should be easy to interpret by health officials (von Lützau-Hohlbein
2016).
 Meetings should be organized with ministers and high level officials. Having a
representative from any dementia based organization would add much needed support.
Participation from some activists would increase the chances of success. These meeting
will motivate volunteers from different offices who will take initiative to promote
fundraising campaigns (Giebel et al. 2017).
 Planning a proper media strategy is another one. The sympathetic coverage of media
usually increases the politicians’ access that can result in news that leads to profound
media coverage. This results in raising the public awareness about the issue. Proper
interviews with delivering the correct message through campaign should be arranged.
The professionalism should be maintained with respect to the position in the
organization. Along with that the spokespersons delivering the message should be
prepared in answering the difficult questions with quick response to contradicting views
(Fortinsky and Downs 2014).

3NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASE
This is important because:
 It is the single major cause of mental disability among Australians above 65 years of
age.
 In 2011, there were 298,000 people in Australia with dementia.
 This number is expected to markedly increase over time. There will be about 536,164
people with dementia by the year 2025 (Australia 2013).

4NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASE
References
Australia, A., 2013. Statistics: Summary of dementia statistics in Australia.
Fortinsky, R.H. and Downs, M., 2014. Optimizing person-centered transitions in the dementia
journey: A comparison of national dementia strategies. Health Affairs, 33(4), pp.566-573.
Giebel, C., Roe, B., Hodgson, A., Britt, D., Clarkson, P. and HoST-D (Home Support in
Dementia) Programme Management Group and Patient Public and Carer Involvement Groups,
2017. Effective public involvement in the HoST-D Programme for dementia home care support:
From proposal and design to methods of data collection (innovative practice). Dementia,
p.1471301216687698.
Knapp, M., Iemmi, V. and Romeo, R., 2013. Dementia care costs and outcomes: a systematic
review. International journal of geriatric psychiatry, 28(6), pp.551-561.
O’connell, B., Hawkins, M., Ostaszkiewicz, J. and Millar, L., 2012. Carers’ perspectives of
respite care in Australia: an evaluative study. Contemporary nurse, 41(1), pp.111-119.
von Lützau-Hohlbein, H., 2016. Prioritising Dementia 06 AE and its member organisations
discuss development of a model dementia strategy.