Parkinson's burden to increase as world grows older

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — A surge of Parkinson's disease linked to rapidly aging populations worldwide will severely tax health care systems in coming decades, experts warned Thursday ahead of World Parkinson's Disease Day.

The burden of Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases that strike later in life will be amplified, experts say, by breakdown of informal, home-based care networks that are already strained.

"In many countries, overdependence on voluntary care is a key issue caused by lack of appropriate, consistent and affordable institutional resources," said Mary Baker, president of the European Parkinson's Disease Society.

"With an ever-increasing elderly global population, the cost to nations will be astronomical if action is not taken now, at the...