BU’s latest research into Dementia presenting at a younger age reveals new evidence and has been noted in national press.
The research suggests that modern living could be responsible for an ‘almost epidemic’ increase in neurological brain disease.
Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University discovered that deaths caused by neurological disease have raised significantly in adults aged 55-74, and for adults 75+ the rate has virtually doubled in every Western country in just the last 20 years.
It was also found that dementias are starting a decade earlier than they used to in adults.
The research was noted and picked up by national press, on the front page of The Times newspaper. It was also mentioned in The Sun, the Mail Online, discussed on the BBC News channel and even mentioned internationally in The Washington Post.
In an interview with The Times, Professor Pritchard said: “The rate of increase in such a short time suggests a silent or even a `hidden’ epidemic, in which environmental factors must play a major part, not just ageing. Modern living produces multi-interactional environmental pollution but the changes in human morbidity, including neurological disease is remarkable and points to environmental influences.
“Crucially it is not just because people are living longer to get diseases they previously would not have lived long enough to develop but older people are developing neurological disease more than ever before.
“Essentially, it is time for us to wake up and realise that a major problem we now face is unprecedented levels of neurological disease, not just the earlier dementias and thinking of the USA - `when America sneezes, Europe gets cold a decade later`.”
