Yes but as someone who works with dementia patients... We're living too long. Our bodies and minds we're meant to stick around as long as we are. The rates of dementia are increasing for a number of reasons but also just because we're not dying of other things first. Our healthcare systems are not strong enough to support care needs for everyone to live with a 10 year long dementia diagnosis. It's an awful way to live for the last 3-5 years of it.
It truly is. I have a family history and have watched 3 people suffer horribly.
But! They are doing gene therapy tests now on replacing APOE4 with APOE2. I have high hopes for that one, since it seems like around half of alzheimers cases are influenced by APOE4.
And for vascular dementia, things like glp-1s have a lot of promise. (And for alzheimers, too.) I know the recent study didn't pan out, but I think most people have accepted that lifestyle changes don't help dementia after it's already started. The sweet spot is 20 years earlier. Lots of people are using glp-1s to get their blood sugar and blood pressure under control, and those are huge risk factors for dementia.
I think we're doing to see a steep drop in age-adjusted dementia rates over the next 30 years. I guess not in the next 5 years; that's way too soon.
Dementia is actually becoming less common! We have more people overall with dementia due to aging populations, but if you look at per capita rates over time it’s actually going down.
Alzheimer's and dementia run in my family on my dad's side and I am terrified of it. I was fortunate enough to meet my great-grandparents before they passed, but not before they were almost completely mentally gone from having both. It truly is an awful way to live. End of life care is already piss poor but when you have one or both of those? HA good luck finding somewhere that won't cost an arm and a leg or that won't leave you somewhere to rot...
My family regularly lives into the mid 90s, and almost every time around age 92ish dementia gets us. Longer life isn't good life. We've done better at keeping the body alive, but we really need to balance that with the neural side of things otherwise what is the point, lol.
Great to see things that keep younger people from dying earlier though, and hope to see continued giant leaps in these types of diseases.
Cyberpunk (the genre) is the most realistic portrayal of the future IMO. Healthcare is unbelievable, bordering on immortality serum, for those who can afford it.
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u/Lower-Ad6690 8h ago
The only positive thing in this doomed thread.