If The Brain Withers

Four million Indians have dementia, the disease with no cure. And, not more than 10 percent of them are diagnosed.

- Ajay Sukumaran

WHAT would it mean to be at the peak of your abilities, to have a busy job and hectic schedules, and then to be suddenly robbed of the very faculties that shaped your life? All around us there are many tragic stories of snatched memories among the elderly—and, though rarer still, among the middle-aged too. Some of that plays out in many ways, at many places, and those who suffer, often do so silently. Not long ago, outside one of Bangalore’s government offices, an officer arrived in a car and wanted to be let in. There was some confusion because the officer didn’t work there anymore, but, tragically, the person had forgotten that. In the mid-40s, the officer had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia some months earlier.

For the majority of people affected by dementia, whether it’s due to Alzheimer’s or some other syndrome, the devastating condition sets in mostly after the age of 65. “But we do come across people in their 50s and early 60s developing dementia,” says Dr Jacob Roy K., who founded the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI) in 1992 after his experience of caring for his father at a time when dementia was hardly acknowledged as a problem that affected people in India.

Dementia affects around 50 million people worldwide and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Though it mostly affects older people, it is not a normal part of aging. The most common form is caused by Alzheimer’s. After China and the US, India has the world’s third largest number of people with dementia: over four million.

"Not even 10 percent of those estimated to be affected are diagnosed. That's no surprise as many think it is a part of ageing or a purely psychiatric problem, or that nothing much can be done," says Roy.