Ageing populations ‘to lead to global health crisis’

Ageing populations will almost certainly lead to a global health crisis in little more than 30 years, a major study warns.

The number of dependent older people is expected to rise threefold to 277m globally by 2050 with half of them having Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia.

Ireland is expected to be among the countries worst affected, because of our rapidly ageing population. There are now 41,700 people in Ireland with dementia but that is expected to rise to 147,000 by 2041.