Bandar Seri Begawan [Brunei], September 18: According to findings from the Lancet's Global Burden of Disease study in 2019, Brunei has 1,574 cases of dementia, with the figure expected to rise to 7,317 by 2050, Health Minister Haji Mohd Isham said.
Dementia is currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide, he noted.
According to the Borneo Bulletin daily on Saturday, the health minister said dementia is a kind of disease affecting the cognitive function of the brain, impacting memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion.
There are different types of dementia whereby Alzheimer's disease is the most common accounting for 60 to 70 percent of dementia cases.
Due to the high rate of non-communicable diseases in Brunei, vascular dementia is also commonly found among the elderly, the minister said.
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on all walks of life, especially people with dementia who experience a higher risk of obtaining treatment at hospitals, experience more severe illness and higher risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to patients who do not have dementia.
Source: Xinhua
