Cases of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are expected to soar in the next few decades, due largely to a spike in cases in developing countries, a report said Monday.
Usually, dementia affects the elderly, and as improved healthcare helps more people live longer, the world population has a greater proportion of older people and the challenges that come with that.
Just under 36 million people will be living with dementia in 2010, an increase of around 12 million from how many suffered some form of dementia in 2005, said a report by Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI), which groups Alzheimer associations around the world.
Incidences of dementia were expected to nearly double every 20 years, to reach around 66 million in 2030 and more than 115 million by the middle of the century.
Dementia is defined in the report as "a syndrome due to disease of the brain, usually chronic, characterized by a progressive, global deterioration in intellect including memory, learning, orientation, language, comprehension and judgment."
Nearly 60 percent of the 36 million thought to be suffering from dementia are in low- or middle-income countries, and the disease will increase more sharply in those same countries than in high-income countries, the report predicts.
"We forecast a 40 percent increase in numbers in Europe, 63 percent in North America, 77 percent in the southern Latin American cone and 89 percent in the developed Asia Pacific countries," the report said.
"These figures are to be compared with 117 percent growth in East Asia, 107 percent in South Asia, 134-146 percent in the rest of Latin America, and 125 percent in North Africa and the Middle East," it said.
One reason why dementia is rising more sharply in developing nations is because Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are not viewed in many of those countries as medical conditions but as "a normal part of aging," the report said, calling on the World Health Organization to declare dementia a world health priority.
kdz/ksh
Health-Alzheimers
AFP 211543 GMT 09 09
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