ABSTRACT
The diagnosis and management of dementia will be a major challenge for health
care systems in the coming decades. As the world’s population ages, the
prevalence of dementia will grow dramatically (1). Alzheimer’s disease (AD),
the most common cause of dementia, accounts for much of the increasing
prevalence of dementia with age (2). However, many other causes of dementia,
such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease, also increase dramatically as people
become older. The care of those with dementia causes great burdens on caregivers
and society. The number of individuals with dementia will grow most rapidly in the
developing world, but dementing diseases will have their greatest social impact in
Japan, Europe, and North America, where their proportion of the population will
be highest. Prevention and improved diagnosis and treatment of cognitive
impairment and dementia offer the only hope to alter this grim equation.
