Number of Canadians living with dementia predicted to explode: study

The number of Canadians living with dementia is set to explode in the coming decades, according to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

By 2050, the study’s authors predict this number will increase by 187 per cent in Canada.

Dementia is a general term for the loss of cognitive abilities, which can interfere with everyday life. For this study, the society says it undertook a “microsimulation study,” using a socioeconomic statistical analysis platform to project the number of Canadians who will develop dementia in the next 30 years.

Joshua Armstrong, a research scientist with the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, tells CityNews to ensure Canadians living with dementia are cared for properly, a one-size-fits-all approach must be avoided. Socioeconomic factors must be considered by care providers, he says.

“People (need to) look at things like education — less education means more risk — but also things like smoking, alcohol use, lack of physical exercise, lack of social activity, all of these things can play a role in your overall dementia risk,” Armstrong said.

By 2030, the study’s authors predict one million Canadians will be living with dementia and the number of new cases per year will rise by 63,000, from 2020 numbers.

Armstrong says by 2050, one in four Canadians with dementia will also be of Asian heritage.

“In the seventies and eighties we saw a shift in immigration, so those individuals who came from Asian countries are getting older, and they’re at higher risk for dementia,” he said.

Finally, care partners — or family members — of people living with dementia are expected to put in almost 1.4 billion hours of care annually by 2050, the study states. That’s equivalent to more than 690,000 full-time jobs.

In anticipation of this, Armstrong says extra thought by policy-makers needs to be given to caregivers, such as those working in long-term care homes.

“We can also talk about home care and trying to build out those services, and then we also need to think about care partners, the family members that provide a lot of care to individuals with dementia,” he said.

“How can we best support those individuals depending on where they live and the different characteristics that they have?”

-With files from John Ackermann