Bogotá DC, September 21, 2020. In compliance with Law 1616, 2013, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection aims to promote mental health as an integral element to guarantee the right to health of all individuals, families and communities, for comprehensive development and risk reduction associated with mental problems and disorders.
Nubia Bautista, interim deputy director of Non-communicable Diseases of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, explained that Alzheimer's is the most frequent type of dementia or Major Neurocognitive Disorder (NCD).
Dementia is a clinical syndrome caused by a wide number of diseases, which affect different cognitive domains such as memory, language, executive functions, and behavior, attacking mainly adults over 60 years of age.
"The Ministry of Health and Social Protection has made efforts to have a progressive increase in the contents of mental health in the Health Benefits Plan charged to the UPC Capitation Payment Unit (former POS), which guarantees care for Alzheimer's and other diseases that include mental health such as frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia among others," explained Bautista.
In addition to this, Resolution 518, 2015 refers to the health technologies to be developed by all the territorial entities of the country, and it involves the Community-Based Rehabilitation Strategy in Mental Health, as well as the School Orientation Zones and the Listening Centers, which allow a penetration of the community, family and educational environments to arrange health education activities and psychosocial support.
According to the WHO, it is estimated that about 47.5 million people in the world currently live with some type of NCD, a figure that usually doubles every 20 years according to some international organizations.
Thus, by 2050 a number close to 145 million people affected could be expected around the world.
Stages and symptoms
Although it is true that the main risk factor associated with the development of some NCDs is advanced age, more and more attention is being paid to environmental prevention strategies as a framework for their management.
Following the approach of some authors, the prevention of NCD can be thought of in three stages or moments that are not mutually exclusive: primary, secondary and tertiary.
The primary stage generally refers to the prevention of the disease before its biological debut or the prevention of the risk factors for the disease.
The secondary refers to the early detection of cases in still asymptomatic subjects through screening strategies, usually with a view to starting treatment also early.
Tertiary prevention, finally, refers to interventions that seek to delay or stop the progression of the disease. In this sense, the prevention of NCD is clearly the best option (where possible, of course) and in the literature, more and more attention has been given to the role of preventive actions as a real strategy for reducing the burden of NCD diseases.
Finally, Bautista recommended maintaining healthy lifestyles, being physically, socially and intellectually active, and consulting health services early in case of memory, language or behavior failures after the age of 50.
She also urged health service providers and professionals throughout the country to make use of the Clinical Practice Guide for the diagnosis and treatment of major neurocognitive disorders (dementias), available on the Ministry of Health and Social Protection website.
