Regional patterns - Mediterranean countries Cost of dementia by
Paul-Ariel Kenigsberg, Fondation Médéric-Alzheimer In Greece and
Turkey, access to diagnosis and care for people with dementia
appears to be hampered by cultural barriers. In Turkey, a
population-based study of people without dementia, aged 70 years
and older, living in an urban area of Istanbul, showed that the
concept of dementia was not generally considered as a medical
problem by the elderly Turkish population, regardless of age and
education (1). Another Turkish study showed that the impact of
informal care is very high. (2). Greece moved toward a national
healthcare system only in the 1980s . In rural populations,
healthcare was served to a large extent by physicians without
formal training in general practice and a low level of knowledge
in relation to Alzheimer’s disease in 2001. People with
frontotemporal lobar degeneration are diagnosed later in the
disease in Greece and Turkey rather than in the United States,
presumably because their