Wandworth Local Health and Care Plan - October 2019

27 Our work - Age Well Dementia The number of patients with a diagnosis of dementia recorded on GP registers is growing with greater awareness amongst front line staff. This timely diagnosis helps with planning care and support leading to better quality of life for the patient and their family. Dementia mainly affects older people and after the age of 65 the likelihood of developing dementia roughly doubles every five years . With the number of older people in Wandsworth set to grow faster than the overall population and as people live for longer, dementia presents us with a growing challenge. There are almost two women to every man with dementia. Improve Care Navigation and planning, integrating dementia care into other care planning streams so that more people are able to maintain independent living in their own home or place of care. Improve support to unpaid carers of people with dementia, with aligned pathways for unpaid carers for people having specialist mental health dementia services and more proactive engagement with carers. What we will do: