Abstract
At the moment, dementia is affecting around 47 million people worldwide, with a forecast amount of 135 million affected people in 2050. Dementia is a growing health concern worldwide with no treatment currently available, but only symptomatic medication. Effective interventions in the prevention and management of dementia are urgently needed to contain direct and indirect costs of this disease. Indeed, the economic impact of dementia is a vast and continually growing figure, but it is still difficult to quantify. Due to an increase in both the disease spreading and its direct and indirect costs, national and international action plans have to be implemented. As a virtuous example, the Italian national plan for dementia has been summarized. Faced with an increasingly less sustainable disease impact at national and international levels, the plan suggests that it is certainly the entire welfare model that should be rethought, strengthening the network of services and providing interventions to support affected people and their caregivers. Alongside this synergistic approach, scientific research could play a crucial role for pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments capable of delaying the state of loss of self-sufficiency of the patient, with a significant impact on social and health costs.
Highlights
More than 47 million people are affected worldwide by dementia, and the majority of them are over 65 years old
Priorities on the dementia phenomena are comprehension of the pathology in terms of cellular, molecular, and genetic processes and early diagnosis through the use of cognitive tests and clinical trials, but mainly the understanding of social aspects including social programs and technology to benefit medical care and programs to contain the costs of the disease
Even in the presence of several unsolved situations, it can be said that to date, Italy is improving the management of the dementia problem both nationally and in Europe, to develop and optimize new health and social strategies for improving the quality of life of the people affected by dementia and for greater appropriateness of care interventions
Summary
More than 47 million people are affected worldwide by dementia, and the majority of them are over 65 years old For this reason, this phenomenon is considered a growing health concern, given the increased longevity of the world population (especially in developed countries) combined with the absence of a treatment capable of modifying the disease [1]. Mild cognitive impairment is considered the early stage of any form of dementia and is characterized by a light cognitive decrease in comparison to a previous level of capability. This decrease poorly interferes with the normal activities of the patient during the daily life, and this condition is mainly identified in specialized centres. By 2050, most people over 60 years old—120 million—will live in China, while 434 million will live in the rest of the world
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