A recent report in The Lancet has predicted that, given the projected trends in population ageing and population growth, the number of people with dementia is expected to increase to more than 153 million people by 2050 - nearly 270% more than the 57 million people living with dementia in 2019.
Significantly the report suggests a growing body of evidence has emerged which supports the importance of potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. The 2020 update to the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care highlighted evidence for 12 modifiable risk factors for dementia:
Low education
Hypertension
Hearing impairment
Smoking
Midlife obesity
Depression
Physical inactivity
Diabetes
Social isolation
Excessive alcohol consumption
Head injury, and
Air pollution.
Addressing these factors through public health interventions is a pathway towards reducing disease prevalence, and future changes in modifiable risk factors might influence the trajectory of trends in age-specific prevalence.
The sheer scale of the healthcare challenge is the reason why developing our technology to enable Alzheimer's Screening remains an area that Occuity intends to pursue in the future.
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