The dementia rate in the U.S. is declining rather than rising as the population gets older, according to a study that sampled 21,000 older Americans and found a nearly 3 percentage point drop from 2000 to 2012.
Led by Kenneth Langa, a professor at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and School of Public Health, the study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine, and looked a nationally representative sample of adults 65 years old over who were tested for dementia from 2000 to 2012, said Live Science.com.
Dementia is a group of symptoms, which can include problems with thinking and solving problems, as well as personality changes, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The study didn't track individual causes of dementia like Alzheimer's disease.
"Our results, based on in-depth interviews with seniors and their caregivers, add to a growing body of evidence that this decline in dementia risk is a real phenomenon, and that the expected future growth in the burden of dementia may not be as extensive as once thought," said Langa in a university news release.
"A change in the overall dementia forecast can have a major economic impact. But it does nothing to lessen the impact that each case has on patients and caregivers. This is still going to be a top priority issue for families, and for health policy, now and in the coming decades," Langa added.
During the study, researchers found that 11.6 percent of those interviewed in 2000 met the criteria for dementia, while in 2012, only 8.8 percent did. The average number of years of education a senior, though, rose over that time by nearly an entire year, from 12 to 13.
"It does seem that the investments this country made in education after the second World War are paying off now in better brain health among older adults," said David R. Weir, a senior author of the study. "But the number of older adults is growing so rapidly that the overall burden of dementia is still going up."
The researchers said more work needs to be done to cover other factors for the possible decline in dementia.
"… The full set of social, behavioral, and medical factors contributing to the decline in dementia prevalence is still uncertain," the JAMA study said in its conclusion. "Continued monitoring of trends in dementia incidence and prevalence will be important for better gauging the full future societal impact of dementia as the number of older adults increases in the decades ahead, as well as for clarifying potential protective and risk factors for cognitive decline."
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