Dementia statistics

No life blighted by Alzheimer's will ever be just a statistic. But the facts and figures about the impact of this disease and other dementias, as well as the current costs of care and research, make for sobering reading.

Overview

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

25 million people, or 42% of the UK population, are affected by dementia through knowing a close friend or family member with the condition.

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.

National impact

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

 

 Dementia compared with other conditions

The Alzheimer’s Research Trust’s Dementia 2010 www.dementia2010.org

 reveals that:

 

-       820,000 people in the UK live with dementia. Previous estimates put the figure at 700,000.

 

-       Dementia costs the UK economy £23 billion per year (previously estimated to be £17 billion). 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.

 

-       Every 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.

 

Regional statistics

We have statistics showing the prevalence of dementia in a number of regions and UK cities available on request.

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. And 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 366, 2112-2117.

Alzheimer's Disease International (2009), World Alzheimer's Report

        

 

The cost to society - now and in the future

The number of people with cognitive impairment, which is most commonly caused by dementia, is expected to increase by 66 percent between 1998 and 2031 to 765,000 individuals.

According to the Dementia UK report from King's College London and the London School of Economics (commissioned by the Alzheimer's Society) dementia currently costs the UK over £17billion per year.

Dementia costs in the UK will reach almost £35 billion within 20 years according to the King's Fund's 2008 report 'Paying the Price'.

Unless treatments are found the number of people with cognitive impairment who will be placed in institutions is expected to rise by more than 63 percent from 224,000 in 1998 to 365,000 in 2031.

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: Cognitive impairment in older people: its implications for future demand for services and costs. Adelina Comas-Herrera, Raphael Wittenberg, Linda Pickard, Martin Knapp and MRC-CFAS. PSSRU Discussion Paper

Cognitive Impairment in Older People: future demand for long-term care services and the associated costs (2007) by Adelina Comas-Herrera, Raphael Wittenberg, Linda Pickard and Martin Knapp 1728.