AS A carer Mike Vango became a campaigner for dementia patients during the battle to save the Dunboyne care home in Torquay from closure in 2006.

Now he is lending his voice to this new campaign to highlight the massive discrepancy between the funding available for Alzheimer's and the other major age-related diseases.

He said: "There is a huge need for increased funding and I think this is the issue that needs to be brought out into the open.

"They are competing for funds with other spending needs and people need to consider how the cost of care will be met in the future."

Mike's wife Barbara was not even 60 when she was diagnosed with dementia eight years ago. She is now 67.

Mike, 66, said: "It is devastating when you first find out, but there are some positives.

"You very much value the time in the early stages as you have a finite amount of time, so you value it better and make much better use of it.

"The other positives are you actually meet quite inspirational people who work in care and provide a very intensive level of care for not very much money. There are some brilliant people doing amazing work and they are undervalued, I think.

"For the carer it can become quite isolating. One of the biggest difficulties is socialising with friends, which can gradually tail off.

"You can feel inadequate in certain situations."

The new campaign has been launched to dispel the myths surrounding Alzheimer's and dementia and look at how sufferers and carers can get the vital support they need.

Local councils, NHS Primary Care Trusts, the Strategic Health Authority for the South West and the Alzheimer's Society have teamed up to raise awareness of the condition.

Mike wants to point out that the cost of the care for Alzheimer's patients is more than the total cost of caring for cancer, stroke and heart patients. Yet the amount of money for research is just £11 per Alzheimer's patient, compared with £289 per cancer patient.

"The money is stretched very thinly and with an increasing elderly population this will only get worse. The needs get more complex as people get older.

"It is important to get an early diagnosis. Nobody wants to hear the fact that somebody they care for has dementia, but once you have established the fact you can begin to plan and direct life in a way you can cope with.

"While there is no early treatment you can certainly ease the passage and extend the independent lifestyle quite considerably and there is help out there.

"There is tremendous help available once someone has been diagnosed as needing support. It is available from the care trust and various local organisations such as the Alzheimer's Society.

"There are very good services locally. There are good residential services locally and they need support.

"Most significantly treatments need to be found so costs are not increasing year on year. Money does need to be spent on research so costs can be reduced as less people will need the care."

But he says that while the care should be in place so people can stay at home if they wish, there should also be suitable residential care available.

"I hope the pressures on funding will not see people encouraged to stay at home if that is not their choice."

And he warned: "Funding is going to worsen and is unsustainable in the long run."

Dementia affects around 700,000 people in the UK including 66,000 people in the South West.

The number is expected to increase more than threefold in the next 50 years.

The condition results in a slow deterioration of the mind which leads to sufferers losing treasured memories and forgetting loved ones.

A spokesman for the Alzheimer's Society in South Devon said: "We're dealing with one of the last great taboos here. There can barely be a family in the land which has not been touched by dementia at some stage.

If dementia has affected you or a family member, please log on now to fill out the survey at www.dementiaawareness.co.uk