On 2 November, collaborators from the US Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study published an article in JAMA Neurology, identifying the prevalence, incidence, mortality and quantity of disability-associated life years of different neurological disorders between 1990-2017 in America. Focusing on communicable and noncommunicable neurological disorders such as stroke, meningitis, traumatic brain injury and Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, the GBD study used epidemiological and routinely collected data to calculate the prevalence, incidence, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and deaths caused by these disorders.
Among the neurological disorders, tension-type headaches and migraine were the most prevalent, affecting over 121 million and 68 million people in the US. AD and other dementias were fourth on the list by prevalence, affecting over 2.9 million people, but was associated with the second highest number of DALYs (2.6 million DALYs vs 3.6 million DALYs for stroke). While the age-standardised incidence, prevalence and DALY rates of most neurological disorders remained stable or slightly decreased between 1990 and 2017, the absolute incidence and mortality rates increased over time. AD and dementias constituted the leading cause of death during this period (38/100,000 population per year) and was one of the leading causes of DALYs (419 per 100,000 population per year).
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2772579
