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Impact of dementia on costs

Worldwide the number of people suffering from dementia exceeds the number of inhabitants of Spain: over 46 million patients. This entails huge human costs, but also an impressive economic expense that is estimated to be 818 billion dollars in 2015, a figure that could reach billions of billions in 2018.
To give an idea of how high it can be: if it were a country, it would be the eighteenth largest economy in the world, higher than the market values of companies like Apple and Google. Data on Western Europe show that only 19.3% of total costs are due to direct medical spending, while 43% are social costs and 37.6% are informal care.
It is a progressive increase in socio-economic commitment and a continuous challenge for healthcare systems around the world. All countries must include dementias in their public health programs; at international, national, regional and local levels, and programs and coordination on multiple levels and between all the parties involved are needed.
Estimates of calculation of the social and health costs of dementia in Italy assume total figures of around 10-12 billion euros per year, and of these 6 billion for Alzheimer’s disease alone. Prevention
Prevention can also significantly contribute to reducing the social and health costs that affect health systems and the population.
Numerous scientific evidence, for example, identifies some modifiable risk factors associated with particular with the onset of Alzheimer’s dementia such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, smoking, depression and physical inactivity. These are issues on which it is possible to act, modifying one’s behavior and in doing so it is possible to prevent or at least postpone the onset of dementia. It has been calculated, for example, that reducing 10% or 25% of each of these risk factors could prevent 1.1 to 3 million cases of Alzheimer’s disease.
You can also introduce some healthy habits into your life, able to keep your brain in operation: first of all, read books or newspapers or whatever may be of interest to the mind, delight in crosswords, sudokus or other puzzles, learn a language or play an instrument musical, keep in motion, as physical activity favors the production of a nerve growth factor (the so-called brain neurotrophic factor), which protects brain neurons from deterioration. Another important point is to learn to control work or emotional stress