India faces rising dementia burden as ageing population grows, warns psychiatrist

India’s ageing population is pushing dementia cases to alarming levels, with 7.4%—around 90 lakh people—already affected. Experts warn states to act decisively on prevention and early detection, as new therapies offer hope but require timely diagnosis and intervention.

Hyderabad: India is rapidly aging and so is the burden of disease related to dementia. At present, based on various estimates, 7.4 percent of Indians, which means approximately 90 lakh individuals in the country are estimated to have dementia, with a majority of them struggling with the disease due to lack of proper support system.

In another two decades, in all the Indian states, the population of individuals who are over 60 years of age will approach 20 percent. In the coming years, the rise in the aging population and the need to manage dementia and other neuro-cognitive disorders among the elderly population will become a major public health challenge for the policy makers.

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Dr Vishal Akula, senior psychiatrist and national direct council member, Indian Psychiatric Society, believes that cases of dementia will inevitably rise in the coming years and states without a decisive action plan, especially those with no focus on prevention, will struggle.

The senior psychiatrist points out that the country’s public-health dividend in handling the huge burden of mental health ailments is to focus on the prevention aspect.

“Nearly half the risk of dementia is modifiable. The 2024 update of the Lancet Commission finds 14 modifiable risk factors such as education, midlife hearing loss, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity, depression, alcohol misuse, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, social isolation, high LDL-cholesterol, and untreated vision loss, together accounting for 45 percent of the of the global dementia risk,” he says.

The mental health specialist, however, urges families to be more proactive. “Families brush away memory loss among the elderly as a part of the ageing process. If they notice new memory problems along with day-to-day impact, they must seek early evaluation. Timely diagnosis opens the door for supportive therapies, planning and disease modifying options,” he says.

The psychiatrist advises families to watch for red flags. Alzheimer’s is the commonest forms of dementia that often begins with short-term memory loss, word finding difficulty, getting lost in familiar places, misplacing items, apathy or personality change and trouble managing finances/medications.

“In the last 12 to 18 months, disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s including drugs like Lecanemab (Leqembi) and Donanemab (Kisunla) have received approvals. Both have the ability to slow clinical decline but require careful selection of patients. There are tests that also have received approval to detect these mental health conditions,” Dr Akula points out.

* India is a rapidly ageing population
* 7.4 percent or 90 lakh individuals have dementia in the country
* Estimated population above 60 years by 2025 in close to 35 crore
* States must focus on preventive aspects

* Families must look for signs of early memory loss for therapy and modification