This study provides compelling evidence of a reduction in the prevalence of dementia in the older population over two decades.
-Professor Carol Brayne
The two studies provide the first estimate of the change in the number of people who live with dementia in the UK, and the new figures give a more accurate picture for those developing policies and planning healthcare services for dementia patients.
The results indicate that overall prevalence has gone down by 1.8 per cent to an estimated 6.5 per cent of the population. Using the current age profiles of the UK, this corresponds to an estimated 670,000 people over the age of 65 living with dementia, a reduction of more than 20 per cent in the number of people projected to have dementia today compared with 20 years ago.
Three geographical areas in Newcastle, Nottingham and Cambridgeshire from the initial MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS) examined levels of dementia in the population. The latest figures from the follow up study, CFAS II, show that there is variation in the proportion of people with dementia across differing areas of deprivation, suggesting that health inequalities during life may influence a person’s likelihood of developing dementia.
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Image credit: dark_ghetto28 from Flickr
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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