The families sending relatives to nursing homes in THAILAND: Care is 'cheaper and often better in Asia', they say In the UK the average cost of nursing care is about £28,367 a year In Thailand the figure is more like £21,600 and care home residents can receive individual and loving care from three of four nurses 24 hours a day With the average cost of care in a UK nursing home exceeding £28,000 a year, many families worry about how they will look after their elderly relatives. Now, an increasing number of families are sending their loved ones to more affordable care homes 8,000 miles away in Asia, it has been reported. While nursing care in Asia is much cheaper, it is also often of higher quality than that offered in the UK, families say. Growing numbers of European families are now sending their elderly relatives to live in nursing homes in Asia because they are cheaper and the care is often better, they say One woman who made the difficult decision to send her mother to a care home in Thailand was Sybille Wiedmer, from Zurich. Four years ago, her mother moved to a nursing home in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, the BBC reports. Elisabeth, 91, has dementia and her family believed that in Thailand she would receive more loving and individual care. They also knew that her care would be more affordable. Ms Wiedmer told the BBC: "A lot of people were shocked in the beginning and said, "How can you do this? How dare you do this? You can't visit her. And I said if I visited her here, half an hour later she didn't know any more. She had forgotten. In the UK currently, the average cost of residential and nursing care is about £28,367 a year. In Thailand, the figure is more like £21,600 While the number of people currently moving from Europe to Asia for nursing care is limited, the numbers are expected to increase as care places here become more and more oversubscribed. The pressure on places is expected to increase dramatically as the number of elderly people rises. The World Health Organisation believes that by 2050 the number of people worldwide to live past their 80th birthdays will quadruple to 395 million. One in six of these people will have dementia. In Thailand, the figure is more like £21,600. Not only is care in Asia cheaper, in many cases it is often higher quality. In the UK, a string of abuse scandals have left people afraid of entering a nursing home. However, in Thailand there is a culture of looking after the elderly and care is often excellent. Martin Woodtli, the Swiss director of a Thai care home, claims the people he cares for are better looked after than those who remain in Europe. He says patients often have three or four nurses each and that this level of care can be provided 24 hours a day. Ironically, many of the Thai carers who look after Europe's elderly say they would not consider putting their own parents in such a home. Instead, they expect to look after them at home. While this situation sounds idyllic, it is not feasible for most people in Europe. Ms Wiedmer says she tried to care for her mother at home but that it became impossible because her mother's dementia cause her to become aggressive. As a result, she feels she was left with no option but to move her into a nursing home. In Asia it is thought the care offered in nursing homes is often more individual and loving than that in Europe She says that, while she worries about the decision, she gets comfort from being able to speak to her on Skype every day and from visiting her in Thailand twice a year. Despite the benefits, there are concerns about moving people with dementia abroad as they often become distressed by changes to their environment or routine. In the UK it is believed there will soon be one million dementia sufferers. Research by Oxford University and the Alzheimer's Research Trust revealed that the total cost of dementia to the UK economy was £23 billion in 2010. This means the average dementia patient currently cost the economy £27,647 a year - more than the average salary.