The global cost of dementia in 2010 is expected to exceed 1% of the global gross domestic product, or $604 billionäóîand the price tag will only get higher, according to a new report by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and King’s College London in the UK.

The number of dementia patients is expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050. The cost of care is so massive that, if dementia-care were a country, it would be the world’s 18th largest economyäóîlarger than Indonesia, Switzerland or Belgium.

Source: McKnights