Global population affected by dementia to triple in 30 years
GENEVA: The World Health Organisation ( WHO) said that as the global population ages, the number of people living with dementia is expected to triple by 2050, thus undermining both social and economic development, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Dementia is a general term for several diseases that are mostly progressive, affecting memory, other cognitive abilities and behaviour and interfering significantly with a person’s ability to maintain the activities of daily living.
Of its kind, Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia and accounts for 60 to 70 per cent of cases. The other common types are vascular dementia and mixed forms.
The UN health agency estimated that the total population affected by dementia could triple from 50 million to 152 million by 2050.
Given that the current annual global cost of dementia is already estimated at US$ 818 billion, equivalent to more than one per cent of global gross domestic product ( GDP), it’s estimated that by 2030, the cost is expected to have more than doubled to two trillion dollars, which would seriously undermine social and economic development and overwhelm health and social services, including long-term care systems.
“Nearly ten million people develop dementia each year, six million of them in low- and middleincome countries,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The suffering that results is enormous. This is an alarm call: we must pay greater attention to this growing challenge and ensure that all people living with dementia, wherever they live, get the care that they need,” he added.
Facing that challenge, the WHO launched on Thursday the Global Dementia Observatory, a webbased platform to track progress on the provision of services for people with dementia and for those who care for them.
Besides information on surveillance systems and disease burden data, the platform will also monitor the presence of national policy and plans, risk reduction measures and infrastructure for providing care and treatment.
“This is the first global monitoring system for dementia that includes such a comprehensive range of data,” said Tarun Dua from the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.
“The system will not only enable us to track progress, but just as importantly, to identify areas where future efforts are most needed.”
The WHO is also urging for rapid scale- up of research on dementia, not only to find a cure for dementia, but also in the areas of prevention, risk reduction, diagnosis, treatment and care. — Bernama
Nearly ten million people develop dementia each year, six million of them in low- and middle-income countries. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO DirectorGeneral