New methods are required to replace surveys of older people for dementia

What is it about?

Surveys of older people living in the community were traditionally used to estimate the number of people with dementia. For a number of reasons such surveys are now neither practical nor feasible. New methods of working out the number of people in the community with dementia are required. Often information about whether somebody has dementia is acquired in hospital, medical or social care records. This can provide a way to work out the total number of people with dementia for almost negligible costs. The data gathered may have some inconsistencies that can be overcome by the astute checking of the data and adjusting for inaccuracies.

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Photo by Matt Bennett on Unsplash

Photo by Matt Bennett on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We need to be able to work out the total number of people with dementia to explore whether the risk of dementia changes over time and help plan appropriate treatment and support services.