Statistics on Dementia in the U.K. - 2010

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No life blighted by Alzheimer's will ever be just a statistic. However, the facts and figures about the impact of this disease and other dementias make for sobering reading.


Key facts

There are 820,000 people living with dementia in the UK today, a number forecast to rise rapidly as the population ages.

Just 2.5% of the government's medical research budget is spent on dementia research, while a quarter is spent on cancer research.

1 in 3 over 65s will die with some form of dementia.


Dementia in the UK

The Alzheimer’s Research Trust’s Dementia 2010 reveals that:

- 820,000 people in the UK live with dementia.

- Dementia costs the UK economy £23 billion per year. That is twice the cost of cancer (£12 billion per year), three times the cost of heart disease (£8 billion per year) and four times the cost of stroke (£5 billion).

- Combined government and charitable investment in dementia research is 12 times lower than spending on cancer research. £590 million is spent on cancer research each year, while just £50 million is invested in dementia research. Heart disease receives £169 million per year and stroke research £23 million.

- For every £1 million in care costs for the disease, £129,269 is spent on cancer research, £73,153 on heart disease research, £8,745 on stroke research and just £4,882 on dementia research.

- Caring for each dementia patient costs the economy £27,647 per year: more than the UK median salary (£24,700). By contrast, patients with cancer cost £5,999, stroke £4,770 and heart disease £3,455 per year.

www.dementia2010.org


163,000 new cases of dementia occur in England and Wales each year - one every 3.2 minutes.

Source: Matthews F et al. (2005) The Incidence of Dementia in England and Wales: Findings from the Five Identical Sites of the MRC CFA Study. PLoS Medicine, Vol 2, Issue 8, e193, 1-11


25 million people, or 42% of the UK population, know a close friend or family member with dementia.

Source: Alzheimer’s Research Trust / YouGov, 2008


Global impact

Worldwide, there is a new case of dementia every seven seconds.

More than 35 million people are currently estimated to have dementia, and 4.6 million new cases are diagnosed each year.

The idea that illnesses like Alzheimer's are a disease of rich developed nations is a myth: 60 percent of people with dementia live in developing countries. While the rate of dementia is expected to double between 2001 and 2040 in developed nations, it is forecast to increase by more than 300 percent in India and China.

Sources: Ferri et al (2005) ‘Global prevalence of dementia: a Delphi consensus study’, The Lancet.
Alzheimer's Disease International (2009), World Alzheimer's Report


Hope for the future

If scientists could develop a treatment that would reduce severe cognitive impairment in older people by just 1% per year, this would cancel out all estimated increases in the long-term care costs due to our ageing population.

Source: Adelina Comas-Herrera et al (2007), ‘Cognitive impairment in older people: its implications for future demand for services and costs’, PSSRU


If scientists could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years, we could halve the number of people who die with the disease.

Source: 'Forecasting the global burden of Alzheimer's disease' Brookemeyer et. al. Alzheimer's and Dementia 2007 Jul; 3(3): 186-91