Prevention

Dementia is a very complex condition and with the current level of funding for research as it is, it is unfortunately likely that we are many years away from being able to prevent it. A more realistic target for scientists is to reduce the number of people developing dementia, to relieve some of the symptoms and to slow down the disease process.

A major search is on for the factors that affect a person's risk of developing dementia as this could lead to ways to reduce the number of people who develop this devastating disease as well as help researchers to understand more about dementia and create new avenues of research.

Understanding of the relationship between dementia and its possible genetic factors is still in its infancy, but progress in this area may allow another means of preventing dementia in the future, especially if we can target those at risk.