Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias: Results from the 2017 Global Burden of Disease Study

Background: The aim is to reveal the trends in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias at the global, region, and national levels using data from 2017 Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD 2017). Methods We collected information on the number of incident cases and on the age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) of AD and other dementias during 1990–2017 from the GBD 2017. We also analyzed differences in the incidence among different age groups. The association of ASIR with the development level was explored using Pearson correlation analysis. Results In 2017, the number of incident cases of AD and other dementias was 73.01 million (95% uncertainty interval [CI] = 65.16–81.33 million). This represented an increase of 113.17% from 1990, and an ASIR of 97.46 per 100,000 persons (95% CI = 86.80–108.89 per 100,000 persons). The ASIR was highest in countries in the high-middle sociodemographic index (SDI) quintile, and lowest in low-SDI-quintile countries. The number of incident cases increased from 1990 to 2017, whereas ASIR showed a slight downward trend in most countries. Japan had the highest ASIR in 2017 and showed the largest increase in ASIR over the preceding 28 years. The ASIR increased rapidly with age among those older than 70 years, and was significantly associated with the SDI ( P  < 0.0001, ρ = 0.68). Conclusion The incidence rate of AD and other dementias has declined in recent decades, but the incidence still remains high. The present findings should be useful for resource allocation and planning health services for AD and other dementias.