NEW DELHI — A new
study has revealed that dementia reduced life expectancy by about two years for
people with a diagnosis at age 85, 3-4 years with a diagnosis at age 80, and up
to 13 years with a diagnosis at age 65.
A systematic review of the latest evidence in The BMJ
(British Medical Journal) found that average life expectancy of people
diagnosed with dementia ranges from 9 years at age 60 to 4.5 years at age 85
for women and from 6.5 to just over 2 years, respectively, in men.
Average survival was up to 1.4 years longer among Asian
populations and 1.4 years longer among people with Alzheimer’s disease compared
with other types of dementia.
About 10 million people worldwide receive a diagnosis of
dementia every year, but survival estimates vary widely.
To better understand this, researchers in the Netherlands
set out to determine prognosis for people with a dementia diagnosis, both for
remaining life expectancy and for time to nursing home admission.
Their findings were based on 261 studies published between
1984 and 2024 (235 on survival and 79 on nursing home admission) involving more
than 5 million people with dementia (average age 79, 63 per cent women).
They found that average time to nursing home admission was
just over 3 years, with 13 per cent of people admitted in the first year after
diagnosis, increasing to a third (35 per cent) at three years and more than
half (57 per cent) at five years.
However, the authors noted that are observational findings.
“Future studies on individualised prognosis should ideally
include patients at time of diagnosis, accounting for personal factors, social
factors, disease stage, and comorbidity, while assessing relevant functional
outcome measures above and beyond survival alone,” they added.
The authors said that to enhance future healthcare services
and optimise quality of life for people with dementia and their families, it is
crucial that we continue to strive for more precise, context sensitive
insights.
