Global Epidemiology of Dementia: Alzheimer’s and Vascular Types

The prevalence of dementia varies substantially worldwide. This is partially attributed to the lack of methodological uniformity among studies, including diagnostic criteria and different mean population ages. However, even after considering these potential sources of bias, differences in age-adjusted dementia prevalence still exist among regions of the world. In Latin America, the prevalence of dementia is higher than expected for its level of population aging. This phenomenon occurs due to the combination of low average educational attainment and high vascular risk profile. Among developed countries, Japan seems to have the lowest prevalence of dementia. Studies that evaluated the immigration effect of the…