Prevalence of dementia

Higher than expected prevalence: report on a recent University of the Free State study funded by our research fund. See http://www.ufs.ac.za/templates/archive.aspx?news=1871&cat=1. If you have a problem activating the link, go to www.ufs.ac.za, scroll down to News, then Campus News. Click on News Archive and then 'Higher than expected etc.'
The Alzheimer's Disease International World Report 2010 provides the clearest, most comprehensive global picture yet of the economic impact of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. The report includes an estimate of the worldwide cost of dementia, including direct medical costs, direct non-medical costs and costs of informal (family) care. The estimates are broken down by world region and include analysis of the differences between low- and high income countries. There are also important policy recommendations and the report makes it clear to key decision-makers that doing nothing is not an option. You can find the report at http://www.alz.co.uk/worldreport." Unfortunately, because the disease is under-diagnosed and under-reported in Africa, we believe that their numbers for Sub-Saharan Africa are low.
There are more than 36 million people with dementia worldwide and the number will rise to over 115 million by 2050.
In South Africa, we estimate that about 250,000 people have dementia right now. This is loosely based on Statistics SA figures in the various age groups.