Report: 10 million people develop dementia every year

Chart: Esti­mat­ed preva­lence of demen­tia for peo­ple over 60. [World Alzheimer Report 2015, ADI.]

World Alzheimer Report 2015: Revised Esti­mates Hint at Larg­er Epi­dem­ic (Alz­fo­rum):

“Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Inter­na­tion­al yes­ter­day released its World Alzheimer Report 2015: The Glob­al Impact of Demen­tia. This sev­enth annu­al report from the fed­er­a­tion of Alzheimer asso­ci­a­tions updates 2009 esti­mates of the glob­al inci­dence, preva­lence, upcom­ing trends, and cost of demen­tia, find­ing that almost 47 mil­lion peo­ple now live with this group of diseases.

“We are look­ing at rough­ly a dou­bling in the num­bers every 20 years,” said co-author Mar­tin Prince, King’s Col­lege Lon­don, in an online tele­vi­sion intro­duc­tion to the pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, Prince added, “This tra­jec­to­ry of growth may be changed by efforts to do more to pre­vent the onset of dementia.”

In the ADI report, world­wide inci­dence esti­mates for demen­tia have risen to 9.9 mil­lion new cas­es each year, up from 7.7 mil­lion in the 2012 World Health Organization/ADI report, Demen­tia: A Pub­lic Health Pri­or­i­ty. It also puts a dol­lar amount on the glob­al cost of dementia—$818 bil­lion dol­lars in 2015, up 35 per­cent from $604 bil­lion in 2010. The authors esti­mate that will climb to $1 tril­lion in 2018 and $2 tril­lion by 2030.”

To learn more:

• Full report: Here
• Arti­cle: Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• Key def­i­n­i­tions: Demen­tia is a col­lec­tive name for pro­gres­sive degen­er­a­tive brain syn­dromes which affect mem­o­ry, think­ing, behav­iour and emo­tion. There are a large num­ber of con­di­tions which cause the symp­toms of demen­tia, as a result of changes that hap­pen in the brain and the ulti­mate loss of nerve cells (neu­rons). The most com­mon caus­es are Alzheimer’s dis­ease, vas­cu­lar demen­tia, demen­tia with Lewy bod­ies and fron­to-tem­po­ral demen­tia (includ­ing Pick­’s disease).