Scientists know exactly how long you will live after being diagnosed with dementia – and that’s good news for women

Research shows that men can live for just two years after being diagnosed with dementia, while women can survive for up to nine years.

Dementia is a memory and independence disorder in which the brain functions increasingly poorly over time.

In the later stages, it can cause people to have difficulty eating and exercising, causing potentially fatal infections.

Now, a new study from Dutch researchers suggests that life expectancy after diagnosis varies significantly between men and women.

Analysis of data from 5 million patients showed that men with dementia lived an average of six and a half years if diagnosed at age 60, falling to two years when the patient was diagnosed at age 85.

For women, the outlook was much better: female patients lived an average of nine years when diagnosed at age 60 and four and a half years when diagnosed at age 85.

Compared to people without dementia, a diagnosis was found to reduce overall life expectancy in both men and women.

This was two years lost for those diagnosed at age 85, three to four years for those diagnosed at age 80, and up to 13 years for those diagnosed at age 65.

This graph shows the survival rates of dementia patients in the years after their diagnosis

While men had a lower life expectancy at diagnosis, women as a group generally had poorer survival rates.

This was because they were more likely to develop dementia later in life, when the physical complications it causes are more severe.

The experts from the Erasmus MC University Medical Center in the Netherlands also analyzed how survival differed between different types of dementia.

They found that people with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of the condition, lived an average of 1.4 years longer than people with other types.

Dementia can also be caused by other less common causes, including reduced blood flow to the brain, called vascular dementia, which can occur as a result of small strokes.

Experts also found that people with dementia in Asia lived 1.4 years longer than people in Europe and North America.

Writing in the British medical journal the authors said the data showed that ‘age at diagnosis is the most important determinant of prognosis in people with dementia’.

Early diagnosis of dementia is considered critical for better outcomes because while there is no cure, there are treatments available that can control symptoms and slow progression.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. The disease can cause anxiety, confusion and short-term memory loss

Around 900,000 Britons are currently thought to suffer from memory theft disorder. But scientists at University College London estimate that this number will rise to 1.7 million within 20 years as people live longer. It represents an increase of 40 percent compared to the previous forecast in 2017

However, NHS data shows that only 64 percent of people in England with dementia have a formal diagnosis.

This is partly due to the limited availability of tests and what charities have said is the reluctance of some doctors to diagnose the condition so as not to cause ‘additional distress’ to the patient.

Dementia is the leading cause of death in Britain, killing more than 75,000 people by 2023.

This amounts to approximately one in ten deaths in total, ahead of other major causes of death such as heart disease, thrombosis, embolism and any individual cancers.

Recent analysis by the Alzheimer’s Society estimates that the total annual cost of dementia to Britain is £42 billion per year, with families bearing the brunt.

An aging population means these costs – including the lost income of unpaid caregivers – are expected to rise to £90 billion over the next fifteen years.

It is thought that around 944,000 people in Britain are living with dementia, while in the US the figure is around 7 million.

Alzheimer’s disease affects about six in ten people with dementia.

Memory problems, thinking and reasoning problems, and language problems are common early symptoms of the condition, which then worsen over time.

The analysis by Alzheimer’s Research UK found that 74,261 people died from dementia in 2022, up from 69,178 a year earlier, making it the country’s biggest killer.