Summary
The prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is age-dependent, rising exponentially with increasing age. As a result the number of cases of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have risen this century, as the number of persons over age 65 has dramatically increased. During the next 50 years, the aging of the population will continue worldwide. According to 1996 United Nations projections, the population in the more developed countries will decline slightly from 1.19 to 1.16 billion between the years 2000 and 2050 but the number of individuals age 65 and over will increase from 169 million (14.2% of the population) to 287 million (24.7% of the population). Utilizing conservative prevalence estimates the number of individuals with dementia in developed countries will increase from 13.5 million in the year 2000 to 36.7 million in the year 2050, as an increasing number of very elderly survive. By 2050, incident cases of dementia in the United States will approach the number of incident cases of cancer. Formal and informal costs to care for patients with dementia will increase at least twoand-a-half-fold in constant dollars during this 50-year period.
During the same 50 years, increases in life expectancy in the less developed countries should mirror the increases that occurred in developed countries during the twentieth century. The percentage of the population age 65 and over will increase from 5% to 13% during this time period, exceeding 1.1 billion by the year 2050. There is less certainty as to the prevalence of dementia in less developed countries, but a reasonable estimate is that there will be over 65 million cases of dementia in 2050 and societal costs will increase more than eight-fold over current levels. Discovering how to prevent or delay the onset of AD and related dementing illnesses in order to reduce the prevalence of these disorders must be a high priority for all of our governments.
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Katzman, R., Fox, P.J. (1999). The World-Wide Impact of Dementia. Projections of Prevalance and Costs. In: Mayeux, R., Christen, Y. (eds) Epidemiology of Alzheimer’s Disease: From Gene to Prevention. Research and Perspectives in Alzheimer’s Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60076-0_1
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