Korea’s growing dementia crisis

Posted on : 2014-01-11 13:04 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
More and more families suffering burden of caring for aging family members with insufficient government welfare support
 72
72

By Kim Kyung-uk and Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporters

At 9:40 pm on Jan. 7, the body of a man surnamed Kim, 53, was found hanging in an apartment in the West district of Daejeon. Kim’s mother, surnamed Lee, 96, was also found dead. She had been strangled. Kim left a suicide note behind. “If I’m gone, there will be no one to take care of my mother, who is suffering from dementia,” the note said.

The police said that it appears that Kim killed his mother and hanged himself after losing 150 million won (US$141,300) in stock investing and finding it difficult to make ends meet.

There is nothing new about the tragedy of dementia. A similar incident took place on Jan. 6 when a man surnamed Park, 57, killed his parents and himself. Park was the father of Lee Teuk (real name Park Jung-su, 31), a member of well-known K-pop group Super Junior.

In May 2013, a man in his 80s in Cheongsong, North Gyeongsang Province, who had been taking care of his senile wife for 4 years put her in his car and drove it into a reservoir, killing both of them. In Feb. 2013, a woman in her 80s with dementia was attacked and killed by her son in his 50s who had been taking care of her. And in Dec. 2012, there was a case of an old woman in her 70s killing her husband, who was suffering from dementia.

The number of people suffering from dementia is rapidly increasing each year. According to statistics for that Saenuri Party lawmaker Kim Hui-guk received from the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2013, the number of people with dementia increased 36.8% in the five years from 2008 to 2013, from 421,000 to 576,000. In 2025, experts predict that more than 1 million Koreans will have dementia.

Advocates argue that there is an urgent need for the government to take measures to address dementia. The condition, they point out, does more than cause a single person to suffer: it can ruin an entire family.

“Oftentimes, even when you spend year after year doing your best to look after a dementia patient, there is just no major progress. A lot of families get discouraged,” said Lee Jin-myeong, a director of the Alzheimer’s Association Korea.

Government efforts to address the problem are going nowhere. About 174,000 people with dementia are enrolled in the long-term care insurance program for the elderly this year. For the remaining 400,000 patients, their families must shoulder the burden. The long-term care insurance program is a social welfare program in which stroke victims and people with dementia pay 20% of the cost of staying at a facility while their insurance covers the remaining 80%. The Ministry of Health and Welfare claims that when the special ranking system for dementia kicks in this July, about 50,000 more people will be able to take advantage of insurance benefits, but that still leaves more than 60% of patients in a lurch.

Early screening for dementia is crucial, but the available budget is minimal. Last year, around 42,000 people received free screenings at public health centers. The budget was just 1.6 billion won (US$1.5 million). The amount rose to 2.08 billion won (US$1.96 million) this year, but only 52,000 people were eligible for free testing. A 66-year-old can undergo a test for cognitive functioning impairments while undergoing a “life cycle transitional period” health screening, but with a rise in cases of presenile dementia, which occur in people under 65, many are clamoring for testing to take place sooner.

Awareness of early Alzheimer’s testing is also low. A 2012 survey of 1,444 South Koreans aged 65 or older by the Korean Senior Citizens’ Association found 87.4% answering that early screening for dementia was necessary, but 65.7% reporting they were unaware of testing covered by health insurance, and 54.6% saying they did not know about testing at public health centers.

“The government needs to seriously consider increasing the budget to provide more care facilities and workers, along with a counseling system for family members, who end up carrying a major psychological burden,” said Kim Jin-soo, a professor of social welfare studies at Yonsei University.

Choi Hye-ji, a professor of social welfare studies at Seoul Women’s University, noted that long-term elderly care insurance is focused mainly on care for people suffering physical disabilities.

“We need to broaden the scope to extend to cognitive impairments, and help the patients and their families,” Choi said.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Related stories

Most viewed articles