Dementia Incidence on the Decline in Korea: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Abstract

Park et al.1 have shown that the incidence of dementia has decreased in Korea over the recent 12 years. This is a very positive and promising result for a rapidly aging society like Korea. There are an estimated 705,473 people with dementia, which is 10% of all people aged 65 or older, according to the National Institute for Dementia in 2018. Dementia is one of the major neuropsychiatric disorders and is the fifth most common cause of death, with 43.8 million patients worldwide.2 Unfortunately, there is no cure for dementia. However, the efforts that have been applied to detect and manage its risk factors enabled the incidence of dementia to decrease, especially in high-income countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and European countries.3,4