The estimates of future cases of dementia are a result of work commissioned by Alzheimer’s Research UK. The estimates were based on three components:

  • estimates of how many people born in 2015 will survive to a given age; 
  • age and sex specific estimates of the incidence of dementia;
  • an epidemiological model capable of measuring the flow of people between non-dementia and dementia, while mimicking overall population dynamics consistent with survival data.
 
Data was collected from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Cognitive Function & Ageing Study (CFAS I), and an epidemiological model was built.
The model calculated that:
  • 27% of males born in 2015 in the UK will develop dementia;
  • 37% of females born in 2015 in the UK will develop dementia;
  • 32% of people born in 2015 in the UK will develop dementia.