According to a report carried out by the Colombian School of Rehabilitation (ECR), between 2023 and 2024 more than three hundred thousand people over 60 years of age will suffer from some type of dementia.
On the other hand, an article from the WHO reveals that by 2023 more than 55 million people had dementia worldwide and it is estimated that the number will grow by 10 million people each year.
For this reason, and given the importance of the topic, it is notable that the professor at the Uniremington Faculty of Health Sciences, Maritza García Toro, has been named a new member of the Global Dementia Observatory (GDO), a group of the World Organization of Health created to address this condition.
The GDO functions as a platform for the exchange of information that is provided by research groups, health and social professionals, as well as associations and organizations for people with dementia.
García Toro is part of the neuroscience and aging research group at Uniremington, and his line of work is the care of people with early dementia and the risk of dementia in people with intellectual disabilities.
The research teacher explained about her role in this tool: “my role is to be a peer reviewer, that is, when someone sends material to the Observatory, a group of experts in that specific area review the material and if it is relevant and appropriate to the Observatory it enters.” to be part of it.”
Some facts about dementia
In Latin America, a 205% increase in the incidence of dementia is expected in the next 30 years, given the aging of the population and the insufficiency of prevention strategies. In fact, due to demographic and health transitions, the number of people with dementia in the world will increase from 7.8 million in 2013 to more than 25 million in 2050.
Thus, García Toro’s participation in the WHO group, as she herself states, is important. “We have a commitment now, it is to make the observatory known, that more people visit it and above all to carry out an important visibility process so that our country feeds the figures and feeds the Observatory with material from our production.”
The material collected by the Observatory includes videos, clinical practice guides and epidemiological reports, which help to understand the data, statistics and figures of the actions taken regarding people with dementia, as well as to know what the public policies that exist and if they really work.
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