For Spain, as the proportion of those who have family experience with Alzheimer’s disease grows, we would expect changes in public attitudes and beliefs in three areas. A larger proportion of the Spanish public would believe that a reliable test is available to determine if a person suffering from confusion and memory loss is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, believe that Alzheimer is a fatal disease, and perceive anger and confusion to be a common symptom of the disease.
The United States starts out as the country with the largest proportion of the population reporting family experience with Alzheimer’s disease among the five countries in the survey. As that proportion grows in the future, we would expect changes in public attitudes and beliefs in five areas. A larger proportion of the US public would choose Alzheimer as the disease they are most afraid of getting and perceive the following to be common symptoms of the disease: confusion and disorientation, difficulty managing daily tasks, anger and violence, and difficulty remembering things in their life from the day before.
Looking across the five countries, the growing proportion of people who have family experience with Alzheimer’s disease is likely to have its greatest impact in Poland. Overall, however, the survey results indicate that most of the public’s attitudes and beliefs about Alzheimer in these five countries may not be affected by wider family experience with the disease. These findings show the importance of major educational campaigns about Alzheimer’s disease, its diagnosis, treatment, and symptoms. In the absence of such educational efforts, many public attitudes and beliefs are unlikely to change significantly in the future. In addition, without such an educational campaign, some beliefs that are factually incorrect are likely to remain in the public’s mind.
These findings are important to each country because they show the possibilities of what widespread educational campaigns could do. Improved public education may contribute to a reduction of personal and social burden in various, for example, helping people plan for the future. The results also suggest that educational campaigns could have a different focus in each country depending on the current level of knowledge, awareness, and beliefs.
With Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia becoming a growing global problem [15], these findings suggest that conducting surveys of the public in other countries could provide useful information for health professionals and policy makers dealing with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in their own country in the future.