Read this report on COVID-19 and people affected by dementia. It brings together evidence from a wide range of sources and paints a stark picture of the effects of the pandemic so far. Here's what I learned working on this over the last couple of months 1/ https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-09/Worst-hit-Dementia-during-coronavirus-report.pdf

Of all health conditions, dementia is the most common pre-existing condition in deaths involving COVID-19. Over a quarter (27.5%) of people who died with COVID-19 from March to June had dementia 2/

Beyond deaths directly attributed to COVID-19, the largest increase in excess non-COVID-19 deaths was in people with dementia. We don't know for sure why this is, some might be undiagnosed COVID-19. There were 5,049 excess deaths of people with dementia between 4 Jan & 10 July 3/

For people who survived the crisis, the effects of social isolation were severe. Academic evidence and surveys of care home managers suggests that the lack of social contact led to faster deterioration in the health and wellbeing of people with dementia. 4/

The crisis hit family carers & professional carers hard. We estimated that in the UK, 92 million extra hours were spent caring for loved ones with dementia in the 20 weeks following lockdown. (based on a survey of ~1000 people, details: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2020-09-29/exhausted-family-and-friends-spent-92-million-extra-hours-caring-loved-ones) 5/

There were more indirect effects too. Regular health and social care services were put on hold, creating a backlog of people who have missed out on essential support. The national dementia diagnosis rate steadily decline from Feb to July. 6/

Despite significant challenges, @alzheimerssoc worked in new ways to help people stay connected, setting up new remote services and providing support on our website, accessed over 1.4 million times from 23 March - 31 August 7/

There are hundreds of heart-breaking experiences behind these stats. When I was looking through comments people shared when responding to our surveys it really hit home how many people are struggling and only just coping. Here's just one example 8/

Bringing all this evidence together was only possible thanks to an amazing group of colleagues at @alzheimerssoc, and lots of work from other researchers and organisations showing the experience of people affected by dementia. Now the hard work of changing the situation starts 9/

We need urgent action to protect families affected by dementia ahead of winter. @alzheimerssoc is working to bring attention to this important issue. People can share their lockdown experience to show the reality of COVID-19 and dementia here https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-involved/our-campaigns/coronavirus 10.