“Dementia on the Retreat in the U.S. and Europe,” by Gina Kolata, New York Times

Quote:

“Despite the lack of effective treatments or preventive strategies, the dementia epidemic is on the wane in the United States and Europe, scientists reported on Monday. The risk for a person to develop dementia over a lifetime is now 13 percent lower than it was in 2010. Incidence rates at every age have steadily declined over the past quarter-century. If the trend continues, the paper’s authors note, there will be 15 million fewer people in Europe and the United States with dementia than there are now. The study is the most definitive yet to document a decline in dementia rates. Its findings counter warnings from advocacy groups of a coming tsunami of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, said Dr. John Morris, director of the Center for Aging at Washington University in St. Louis. It is correct that there are now more people than ever with dementia, but that is because there are more and more older people in the population.”

 

 

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

Rare good health news in the year of our plague, 2020. More evidence also that better life styles reduce dementia risk.