Dementia is a global health problem, with the World Health Organization estimates
placing the number of afflicted persons at around 50 million worldwide.
1
Without a treatment or cure, projections are that numbers will increase dramatically
around the world by 2050.
World Health Organization
Dementia: Number of people affected to triple in next 30 years.
Dementia: Number of people affected to triple in next 30 years.
http://www.who.int/news-room/detail/07-12-2017-dementia-number-of-people-affected-to-triple-in-next-30-years
Date accessed: October 16, 2019
2
The prevalent intervention strategy has been pursuit of a drug to cure this illness
or to modify the illness course. Available medications, mainly approved for use in
Alzheimer's-type dementia (AD) but extended empirically to other forms, are mainly
palliative with only modest benefits in a subset of patients. Indeed, clinical trials
focused on the amyloid hypothesis of AD over the past decade have yielded disappointing
results.
3
,
4
,
5
,
6
With drug development stalled, the focus has shifted to other intervention strategies,
among which are population-targeted prevention approaches focusing on identification
of risk factors. Even just delaying the onset of dementia by 5 years would lead to
a substantial reduction in incidence and illness burden.
7
Recent studies and meta-analyses have identified both modifiable and nonmodifiable
risk factors that could alter illness projections and improve disease management.
8
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References
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Article info
Footnotes
This work is supported in part by the UCLA Muriel Harris Endowed Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry to R.T. Espinoza.
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
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© 2019 AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
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