Global Burden of Dementia

An expert group, working for ADI, recently estimated that 24.2 million people live with dementia worldwide (based upon systematic review of prevalence data and expert consensus), with 4.6 million new cases annually (1) (similar to the annual global incidence of non-fatal stroke (2)).

• Most people with dementia live in LAMIC - 60% in 2001 rising to 71% by 2040.
• Numbers will double every twenty years to over 80 millions by 2040.
• Increases to 2040 will be much sharper in developing (300%) than developed regions (100%).
• Growth in Latin America will exceed that in any other world region.

Well designed epidemiological research can generate awareness, inform policy, and encourage service development. However, such evidence is lacking in many world regions, and patchy in others, with few studies and widely varying estimates (1). There is a particular dearth of published epidemiological studies in Latin America with two descriptive studies only, from Brazil (3,4) and Colombia (5).

Figure 1 - ADI's consensus estimates of numbers of people with dementia worldwide (Ferri et al, 2005)




Figure 2 - Increases in numbers of people with dementia from 2001 to 2020 (Ferri et al, 2005)

1. Ferri CP, Prince M, Brayne C, et al. Global prevalence of dementia: a Delphi consensus study. Lancet 2005 Dec 17;366:2112-2117.
   
   
2. The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2004.
   
   
3. Herrera E Jr, Caramelli P, Silveira AS, Nitrini R. Epidemiologic survey of dementia in a community-dwelling Brazilian population. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders 2002 Apr;16:103-108.
   
   
4. Nitrini R, Caramelli P, Herrera E Jr, et al. Incidence of dementia in a community-dwelling Brazilian population. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders 2004 Oct;18:241-246.
   
   
5. Rosselli D, Ardila A, Pradilla G, et al. [The Mini-Mental State Examination as a selected diagnostic test for dementia: a Colombian population study. GENECO]. Rev Neurol 2000 Mar 1;30:428-432.