Gaby
Currently, around 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia. However, researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia believe that the situation may improve. The reason is that the risk of developing dementia decreases with each new generation.
What Did the Researchers Discover?
In their latest study, a university team led by economist Xiaoshuye Dou analyzed data from long-term medical surveys conducted in the U.S., Europe, and England. To provide a more accurate assessment of dementia among participants, the researchers focused only on variables that were consistently available across all survey data.
“For individuals born later, the likelihood of developing dementia in all three regions was found to be lower, although the rate of decline varied. This trend was more pronounced among women than men,” the scientists reported in their findings.
The team particularly focused on participants aged 71 and older. Their data was sorted into age groups spanning four years, as reported by Science Alert.
Younger cohorts showed lower prevalence rates of dementia. “For instance, in the U.S., among people aged 81 to 85 who were born between 1890 and 1913, 25.1 percent suffered from dementia, while among those born between 1939 and 1943, the figure was 15.5 percent,” said study co-author Sabrina Lentz.
The results indicated that while the aging population worldwide is likely to predict a greater number of individuals suffering from dementia, the percentage of those affected by the disease may actually decline gradually.
As the authors of the study noted, this reduction in the risk of developing dementia in new generations “has significant implications for healthcare planning, long-term care policies, and workforce demands” in the context of an aging population.
The findings from the study were published in the JAMA Network Open journal.
