Men can live as little as two years after a dementia diagnosis, while women can survive up to nine, research suggests.
Dementia is a memory- and independence-robbing disorder in which brain functioning progressively worsens over time.
In its later stages, it can cause people to have difficulty eating and moving, which can trigger life-threatening infections.
Now, a new study by Dutch researchers suggests that life expectancy after diagnosis varies significantly between men and women.
Data from analysis of 5 million patients revealed that men with dementia lived, on average, six and a half years if diagnosed at age 60, and this was reduced to two years when the patient was diagnosed at age 85.
For women, the outlook was much better: patients lived an average of nine years when diagnosed at age 60 and four and a half years if diagnosed at age 85.
Compared to people without dementia, a diagnosis was found to reduce overall life expectancy in both men and women.
Two years were lost for those diagnosed at age 85, three to four years for those diagnosed at age 80, and up to 13 years for those diagnosed at age 65.
Men can live as little as two years after a dementia diagnosis, while women can survive more than twice that long, research suggests
This graph shows the probability of survival for patients with dementia in the years after their diagnosis.
While men had a lower life expectancy when they were diagnosed, women, as a group, had worse odds of survival overall.
This was because they were more likely to develop dementia in the future, when the physical complications it causes are more serious.
The experts, from Erasmus MC University Medical Center in the Netherlands, also looked at how survival differed between different types of dementia.
They found that those with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of the disorder, lived an average of 1.4 years longer than those with other types.
Dementia can also be caused by other less common triggers, including reduced blood flow to the brain, called vascular dementia, which can occur due to small strokes.
Experts also found that people diagnosed with dementia in Asia lived 1.4 years longer than those in Europe and North America.
writing in the British medical journal The authors said the data showed that “age at diagnosis is the most important determinant of prognosis in people with dementia.”
An early diagnosis of dementia is considered essential for better outcomes since, although there is no cure, there are treatments available that can combat the symptoms and slow the progression.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. The disease can cause anxiety, confusion and short-term memory loss.
It is currently believed that around 900,000 Britons suffer from this memory-robbing disorder. But scientists at University College London estimate this figure will rise to 1.7 million within two decades as people live longer. It marks a 40 percent increase from the previous forecast in 2017.
However, NHS data suggests that only 64 per cent of people with dementia in England have a formal diagnosis.
This is partly due to the limited availability of tests and what charities have said is the reluctance of some doctors to diagnose the condition so as not to cause “additional distress” to the patient.
Dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK and will kill more than 75,000 people by 2023.
This equates to approximately one in ten deaths overall, ahead of other major causes of death such as heart disease, thrombosis, stroke and any individual cancer.
A recent analysis by the Alzheimer’s Society estimates that the total annual cost of dementia in the UK is £42 billion a year, with families hardest hit.
An aging population means these costs – which include lost income from unpaid carers – will soar to £90 billion over the next 15 years.
Around 944,000 people in the UK are thought to be living with dementia, while in the US the figure is around 7 million.
Alzheimer’s affects approximately six in 10 people with dementia.
Memory problems, thinking and reasoning difficulties, and language problems are common early symptoms of the condition, which then worsen over time.
Analysis by Alzheimer’s Research UK found that 74,261 people died from dementia in 2022, compared to 69,178 the previous year, making it the leading cause of death in the country.