How do we live with dementia?

Bad news: The largest risk factor for most forms of dementia is an unavoidable one — age. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, while just 1 in 50 people between ages 65 and 70 have some type of dementia, 1 in 5 people older than 80 do. The result in the context of a growing and ageing population: a tripling of dementia patients over the next 35 years, reaching 135.5m by 2050.

With effective treatments years away and little evidence that lifestyle behaviours do little more than possibly delay cognitive decline, the question for the millions at dementia’s door is not how to prevent it, but how to live with it.

Today, some 20 countries — most of them in the developed world — have adopted national dementia strategies. In Japan, where one in four people is over 65 and more than 5m already suffer from dementia, the latest “Orange Plan” works to develop a “dementia-friendly ” culture, for example. One city, Uji, assigns care teams of doctors and welfare specialists to those in the early stages of dementia — including home visits and medical appointments. Across Japan, 5.4m people also volunteer as “dementia friends”. Dementia cafés offer lectures and concerts, while networks akin to a neighbourhood watch keep an eye out for wanderers.

Experts also point to Hogewey, a “dementia village” in the Netherlands whose 152 residents live with caregivers posing as store clerks and gardeners. Homes are designed and furnished based on themes such as upper class, artisan or Christian. Designed to be a “complete experience”, Hogewey’s success has inspired similar projects, including a 1950s-style village in Fartown, England, while other cities are adapting current infrastructure to better suit the needs of their citizens: “dementia-friendly shops” in Belgium, “Katarai-no-ie” dementia day centres in Japan and “dementia cafés” in Australia, Ireland and elsewhere.

Projects and strategies of this kind are more the exception than the rule. China, already home to more than 9m people with dementia, is particularly ill-equipped to deal with its dementia population. Notably, a shortage of medical staff and a concentration of services in the largest cities are leading to mortality rates three times higher for rural patients than urban ones, according to a 2014 study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Another reason why programmes haven’t spread rapidly may  be because most were not designed using an evidence-based approach. “We need to look at innovative programmes and fund the research to investigate if it really effects change or just makes people feel good,” says Dr Linda Teri, director of the Northwest Research Group on Aging in Seattle.

Alaana Shaikh, a global health expert who gave a TED talk in 2012 (shown above) about how she is preparing for the likelihood of her developing Alzheimer’s disease, says she read as many studies as she could to better understand the disease that claimed her father soon after her talk. “I focused on things that would make my life better right now regardless of the future,” she says — including learning origami, getting fit and trying to be kind to those around her. And that’s the thread underlying the science: If it’s good for your body, it’s good for your brain; if it helps you today, it helps you tomorrow.

This post first appeared on GE LookAhead. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is a freelance journalist and GE LookAhead contributor. 

Image: Alzheimer’s disease patient Isidora Tomaz, 82, sits in an armchair in her house in Lisbon. REUTERS/Nacho Doce.