Alzheimer disease therapeutics: perspectives from the developing world

Abstract

Although a majority of dementia patients live in middle-income and low-income countries, dementia represents an under-recognized public health burden in the developing world. Culturally and socially, it tends to be trivialized as an inevitable consequence of aging. Economic constraints are paramount, precluding the availability of institutionalized elder care and a state-sponsored health care system. Evidence-based practice for the management of dementia is also hampered by lack of a clear-cut expert consensus on the efficacy of anti-dementia drugs. Public health education, substantial health infrastructure development, and therapeutic advances are necessary for the developing world's looming dementia crisis to be adequately tackled.