Scientific knowledge about dementia : From the Global South to the world

Abstract

Most people with dementia live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but scientific knowledge about dementia is dominated by Global North perspectives. This interdisciplinary article combines expertise from Latin America, India, and Europe, using a mixed-methodology approach that incorporates expert discussions, a narrative review, and five illustrative case studies. The review on dementia in the Global South yielded 82 results, highlighting the themes of challenges in diagnosis and assessment, socioeconomic and systemic barriers to cognitive health and care pathways, and the need for local capacity building. Those themes were then used to interpret case studies on functionality assessment, genetic heterogeneity, bilingualism, structural inequalities, and North-South collaborations. These cases highlight the misalignment between Northern frameworks on dementia and the realities of LMICs, and illustrate the potential for locally generated knowledge to enrich global understanding. Through several rounds of expert discussion, we identified priorities for Global South perspectives for dementia research and policy.