Everyone knows dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are on the rise worldwide. But the speed at which these cases are increasing is shocking.
Dementia has risen from the 24th leading cause of death in the UK to the 10th over the last 20 years.
A Global Issue
The new study, published in Lancet, looks at a UK-specific analysis of worldwide data published last year as the "Global Burden of Disease." The report assesses how the UK is performing on a number of public health outcomes, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The study also looked at general categories like premature mortality and found that the UK has fallen behind 14 other European Union countries as well as Australia and the United States.
“These figures lay out the challenge that dementia poses to the UK but in many ways are not surprising,” stated the Alzheimer Society report. “In fact, as the condition is often not recorded as a cause of death, this may even be an underestimate. Dementia is now one of the top 10 and fastest rising causes of death.”
The Cost of Dementia: Urgent Action Needed
“As well as the untold human cost, dementia costs the economy 23 billion pounds a year,” according to the report. “Despite these statistics and the fact that one in three people over the age of 65 will develop it, funding for dementia research lags far behind other conditions like cancer. With numbers soaring and costs trebling, we need urgent action to find more effective treatments and ultimately defeat dementia.”
Source: MedicalNewsToday, Lancet
