The future costs of dementia will be enormous unless significant intervention takes place now to change the course of this global disease.

The battle to combat dementia would be helped if governments around the world committed at least one per cent of their country’s cost of care to researching the condition, experts have suggested.

Governments should also look into ways of attracting private investment to fund research along with eight other key policy recommendations that could be implemented to diminish the burden of the disease on societies and economies, a study concluded.

Approximately 44 million people around the globe are living with some form of dementia, with the number projected to almost double every 20 years, according to Alzheimer’s Disease International’s 2013 World Alzheimer’s Report.

While there is no cure for the condition, current research suggests that most forms of dementia have genetic and environmental factors including lifestyle choices such as smoking, diet and physical activity levels.

Increasing awareness of dementia, improving care and reducing barriers to drug development are also suggested, along with incorporating brain health into public health strategies.

Approximately 44 million people around the globe are living with some form of dementia

Other proposals suggested by the World Innovation Summit for Health (Wish) Dementia Forum include each country developing their own plan to address dementia nationally, with the UK, Australia, France and Japan being noted as among the only countries to have engaged with the problem so far. Financial incentives for caring staff and more focused scrutiny and studies on people living with dementia are also suggested in the report released at the summit in Doha, Qatar.

If dementia care was a country, it would be the world’s 18th largest economy with the cost reaching an estimated one per cent of global GDP in 2010, the report said.

Finding a cure is a major challenge because by the time symptoms appear, significant neuronal loss has already occurred.

Chairman of the Wish Dementia Forum and president and chief executive of the New York Academy of Sciences, Ellis Rubinstein, said: “It’s clear that there is not one simple panacea for dementia that lies just beyond our reach; rather, it will take the concerted and integrated efforts of leaders and innovators in all sectors to move the needle on this extraordinary social and economic challenge.”

Executive chairman of Wish, Lord Darzi, said: “The social and economic burden of dementia is clear enough today. Yet the future costs to societies and economies will be enormous without significant intervention now to change the course of this global disease. It is the aim of Wish to offer evidence-based actionable recommendations to health minsters and policymakers globally so that we may all work to reduce the prevalence of this disease.”