A HUSBAND whose wife suffers from dementia last night backed calls for increased funding for research into the condition.

Mike Sammons, 73, of Marston, Oxford, helps care for his wife Loni, 81, who is one of about 7,000 people across the county suffering from dementia.

He spoke out following an Oxford University report which claimed the impact of dementia on society had been underestimated.

It emerged yesterday the cost to NHS Oxfordshire of older people’s mental health in 2008/09 was £18.5m. Trust bosses said the amount had increased in recent years and would continue to spiral due to an ageing population.

The university report found dementia affected 820,000 people in the UK and cost the economy £23bn per year, taking into account a number of issues, including care provided for free by families.

Mr Sammons, of Crotch Crescent, said his wife started to suffer memory loss in 2001 when he retired as an accountant.

But it was not until 2007 that a GP diagnosed her with dementia and referred her to the memory clinic in Manzil Way, East Oxford.

Mr Sammons said: “I agree that there needs to be more investment in dementia care and research — I think it took too long for my wife to be diagnosed.

“My wife’s condition has deteriorated in recent years and it is heartbreaking that I can no longer have a proper conversation with her.

“My wife is German-born so now she has regressed to when she was a child and speaks in German.

“A team of carers come four times a day to help me with my wife because she is no longer very mobile, but because I had more than £23,000 capital when she was assessed, it costs me £319 a week, which is quite a lot of money when you are a pensioner.

“Dementia is clearly a bigger problem nationally than first thought and I would certainly like to see more money invested in research.”

Tricia O’Leary, who runs the 20-bed Vale House in West Way, Botley, for Alzheimer’s sufferers, said: “We have noticed an increasing number of referrals in recent years and we could fill this place twice over.

“More money needs to be invested in research so that a cure can eventually be found, and research also needs to be conducted into better ways of caring for these people.”

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said combined Government and charitable funding for dementia research was 12 times lower than that for cancer and called for an increase in dementia research funding to “end years of neglect”.

Prof Alastair Gray, of Oxford University’s Health Economics Research Centre, and one of Dementia 2010’s authors, said: “The economic burden of dementia is far greater than that for cancer, heart disease and other major medical challenges.”

Tom Aubrey-Fletcher, a spokesman for Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, said: “This year, the PCT is investing in increasing the numbers of people with dementia who receive a diagnosis, and ensuring that they receive that diagnosis as early as possible in the course of their illness.

“We will also be looking at the care of people with dementia in hospital settings and how this can be improved.”

affrench@oxfordmail.co.uk