Good News on the Dementia Front?
The latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has two articles about a recent study on dementia. The first Is Dementia in Decline? Historical Trends and Future Trajectories and the second is Incidence of Dementia over Three Decades in the Framingham Heart Study.
A subscription is required to access the full article about the Incidence article, but a free preview is available. Here is an excerpt from the preview
Background
The prevalence of dementia is expected to soar as the average life expectancy increases, but recent estimates suggest that the age-specific incidence of dementia is declining in high-income countries. Temporal trends are best derived through continuous monitoring of a population over a long period with the use of consistent diagnostic criteria. We describe temporal trends in the incidence of dementia over three decades among participants in the Framingham Heart Study.
The Dementia in Decline perspective article is available for free. A pdf of the article is available here. Here is the opening paragraph from that article
In 2005, researchers from the Duke Center for Demographic Studies reported a “surprising trend”: data from the National Long-Term Care Surveys showed that the prevalence of severe cognitive impairment in the Medicare population had decreased significantly between 1982 and 1999. At a time when baby-boomer demographics led to predictions of a looming dementia crisis, this finding offered hope. Since that time, other reports have similarly shown that the incidence or prevalence of dementia is decreasing in various populations. Researchers have offered many possible explanations, including increased wealth, better education, control of vascular risk factors, and use of statins, antihypertensive agents, and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. However, even as researchers describe their “cautious optimism” about specific populations, they still project a quadrupling of global prevalence over the coming decades. (citations omitted)