Cases of stroke, headache, epilepsy more than doubled in 30 years in India
DELHI: The rate of non-communicable neurological disorders and neurological injuries (of the total disease burden) has more than doubled -- from 4% to 8.2% -- between 1990 and 2019 in the country, finds the India StateLevel Disease Burden Initiative in a new scientific paper published in The Lancet Global Health.
Stroke (37.9%), headache disorders (17.5%), and epilepsy (11.3%) are the leading contributors to neurological disorders burden in India, with stroke having caused 699,000 deaths in India in 2019, which was 7.4% of the total deaths in the country.
Stroke also caused 68% of deaths due to neurological disorders, followed by Alzheimer’s and other dementias (12%), and encephalitis (5%).
According to the paper, the total neurological disorders burden due to non-communicable disorders is 82.8%; 11.2% is due to communicable and 6% is injuryrelated disorders. The paper provides the first comprehensive estimates of disease burden from neurological disorders and their trends in every state of India from 1990 to 2019.
These neurological disorders include non-communicable neurological disorders (stroke, headache disorders, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, brain
and central nervous system cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron diseases, and other neurological disorders), communicable neurological disorders (encephalitis, meningitis, and tetanus), and injury-related neurological disorders (traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries).
“While communicable diseases contributed to the majority of total neurological disorders burden in children younger than 5 years, non-communicable neurological disorders were the highest contributor in all other age groups,” said the paper.
Gagandeep Singh, professor, Dayanand Medical College, and the first author of the paper, said, “Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder in India. While the prevalence of epilepsy has increased over the past three decades, India has made some gains in reducing premature deaths and morbidity of people with epilepsy over this period by reducing treatment gaps.”