A PROPOSAL filed to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’s Shanghai Committee suggests a community-based early screening and intervention system for seniors with cognitive disorders.

Seniors with cognitive disorders are not known to neighborhood committees, even though many of them are in the middle to late stages of cognitive disorder and miss the best time for intervention, according to the proposal filed by local advisers Jin Ying and Fang Yue.

Community health service centers are unable to treat cognitive disorders, and many elderly patients do not receive medical support when living in communities. There is also a shortage of beds at senior homes for this group, and some nursing homes even refuse to accept elderly with cognitive disorders, worsening the situation, the proposal said.

The proposal called for including cognitive disorders in the city’s community chronic disease prevention and treatment services.

Doctors are advised to promote relevant knowledge in communities and it is suggested that the screening of cognitive disorder be included in free physical tests of seniors in the city.

An estimated 200,000 seniors in the city suffer from some sort of cognitive disorder, according to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.