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 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK today, a number forecast to double within a generation.

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

Comparisons

Dementia research funding in the UK and US in 2007    

Government funding in £mn (GBP)	Alzheimer's Organisation funding in £mn (GBP)	Government funding per capita (GBP)	Total funding per capita (GBP)	Government funding as % of GDP	Total funding as % of GDP
338.43	9.99	1.12	1.15	0.0051	0.0053
29.2	6.53 (incl. Wellcome)	0.48	0.58	0.0018	0.0026

Source: Alzheimer’s Research Trust

  

 

 Comparative spending on dementia and cancer research

In 2006-07 the government spent 2% of its medical research budget on dementia, and 20% on cancer.

Alzheimer’s and other dementias: £29.2 million (DH £22.8m; MRC £6.4m)

Cancer: £246.6m (DH £161m; MRC £85.6m)

In 2007-08 the Department of Health's total spend on dementia research was £22.2m and the Medical Research Council's £10.2m. This is approximately 2.5% of the medical research budget.

In the same year, DH spend on cancer research was £159m and the MRC invested £89.5m: eight times more than was spent on dementia.

 

 

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 24.3 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.

Source: Ferri et al (2005) Global prevalence of dementia: a Delphi consensus study. The Lancet 366, 2112-2117.

        

 

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.