Prevalence of dementia among the elderly population in Japan

Abstract

Japan enjoys the highest life expectancy at birth among OECD member countries, but Japanese elderly face the risk of long-term care (LTC) needs and high dementia prevalence. After reviewing the prevalence of dementia among elderly people in developed countries, we estimated the number of Japanese elderly living with dementia for the period of 2020-2070, using the results of the projection of the elderly by dependency level obtained from the INAHSIM 2018 simulation. We discussed the importance of reducing the prevalence of dementia among the elderly population, which is both necessary and possible.