WHO report of Dementia

In news– The World Health Organization(WHO) released the Global status report on the public health response to dementia recently.

Key highlights of the report

The report takes stock of progress made to date towards the 2025 global targets for dementia laid out in the WHO’s ‘Global Dementia Action Plan’ published in 2017.
It uses data from WHO’s Global Health Estimates 2019 and the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 as well as from WHO’s Global Dementia Observatory (GDO).
As per the report, only a quarter of countries have a national policy, strategy or plan for supporting people with dementia and their families.
The report says that the number of people living with dementia is growing.
WHO estimates that more than 55 million people (8.1% of women and 5.4% of men over 65 years) are living with dementia.
WHO’s Western Pacific Region has the highest number of people with dementia (20.1 million), followed by the European Region (14.1 million).

WHO’s Global Dementia Observatory (GDO)

The GDO is the monitoring and accountability mechanism for the Global action plan on the public response to dementia 2017-25.
It collates data from WHO Member States on 35 key dementia indicators to strengthen countries’ ability to respond to the needs of people with dementia, their carers and families.

About Dementia-

Dementia is a syndrome – usually of a chronic or progressive nature – that leads to deterioration in cognitive function (i.e. the ability to process thought) beyond what might be expected from the usual consequences of biological ageing.

It affects memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language, and judgement.

Consciousness is not affected.

The impairment in cognitive function is commonly accompanied, and occasionally preceded, by changes in mood, emotional control, behaviour, or motivation.

Although dementia mainly affects older people, it is not an inevitable consequence of ageing.

- It results from a variety of diseases and injuries that primarily or secondarily affect the brain.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and may contribute to 60-70% of cases.

It is currently the seventh leading cause of death among all diseases and one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people globally.