Announcements: The 27^th World Alzheimer’s Day — September 21, 2020

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common chronic progressive neurodegenerative disorder among the elderly. It was first described by Alois Alzheimer in 1906 for a patient he first encountered in 1901 (1). As the most common form of dementia, it affects 3.21% of the population over the age of 65 years old in China (2). The number of people affected by the disease is expected to increase dramatically as it devastates families and communities and is one of the costliest chronic conditions to manage (3).

World Alzheimer’s Day was launched by Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) on September 21, 1994, and then September was designated as World Alzheimer’s Month in 2012 (4). World Alzheimer’s Day and Month have become global efforts to raise awareness and challenge the stigma that surrounds dementia.

The theme of this year’s campaign — “Let’s talk about dementia” — is especially important as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to extremely high death rates amongst people with dementia globally (5).