India needs to gear up for the emerging dementia epidemic, say experts Premium

With India’s elderly population expected to touch 20 crore in 2031, there is a growing demand for a national action plan to tackle rising cases of Alzheimer’s , the most common form of dementia which can impair memory and significantly lower quality of life.

With India’s elderly population expected to touch 20 crore in 2031, there is a growing demand for a national action plan to tackle rising cases of Alzheimer’s , the most common form of dementia which can impair memory and significantly lower quality of life.

Estimates based on a recent multi-centric study reveal a dementia prevalence rate of 7.4% among those aged 60 years and above, translating to nearly 9 lakh Indians currently living with dementia. From an estimated 88 lakh in 2016, the prevalence of dementia is projected to increase to 1.7 crore by 2036. The study titled ‘Prevalence of dementia in India: National and State estimates from a nationwide study’ was published in July this year in Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

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A. B. Dey, former head of the department of Geriatric Medicine at AIIMS, New Delhi, who is the co-principal investigator of the study, said it revealed that States like Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and West Bengal reported much higher rates of dementia. “This is contrary to the earlier belief that southern States with higher ageing populations would have a higher prevalence rate of dementia,” he said.

In 2012, WHO declared dementia a public health priority and launched the Global Action Plan on the public health response to dementia (2017 – 2025), which emphasises critical areas such as dementia awareness, risk reduction, diagnosis, treatment, caregiver support, and research.

Despite advances in drug development, risk reduction remains the only proven prevention tool, Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), the global federation of over 100 Alzheimer’s and dementia associations, has warned. Calling on governments around the world to urgently fund dementia risk-reduction research, education, and support services, ADI has said that nearly 40% of projected dementia cases can be delayed or potentially even avoided by addressing the risk factors. While 40 governments worldwide have so far developed national dementia plans, the proposal is yet to gain momentum in India.

According to a study published in the Indian Journal of Public Health in 2013, the cost of dementia care in India in 2010 for 37 lakh people was ₹23,300 crore annually. It is estimated that the families of 88 lakh people with dementia would be spending about ₹1,18,902 crore to take care of their kin with dementia in a year at present. The enormity of the economic burden on the households to take care of 1.7 crore people with dementia in 2036, based on the current projections will be about ₹3, 08,395 crore annually, experts pointed out.