ICMR Launches MUDRA Toolbox For Dementia Patients: Know All About It

Despite the high prevalence of dementia in India, 90% of people with the condition remain undiagnosed due to low awareness and the lack of appropriate tests.

Currently, more than 55 million people are living with dementia worldwide, and nearly 10 million new cases are reported every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dementia is one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people globally, as well as the seventh leading cause of death among all diseases. For the unversed, dementia is a syndrome that leads to deterioration in cognitive function, affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life. Sadly, there are no approved drugs and prevention strategies for dementia, which impacts not just the person with the disease, but the whole family. Researchers around the world are aggressively trying to understand the exact cause of dementia and how it can be treated or prevented.

With an aim to transform India's dementia and mild cognitive impairment research and clinical practices, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has developed a Multilingual Dementia Research and Assessment (MUDRA) Toolbox. It includes questionnaires and various cognitive tests to assess different domains of cognition such as attention and executive function, memory, language, and visuospatial functions.

Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR, released the MUDRA Toolbox on Wednesday for use in the clinic and research. The tool is available in five different languages -- Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

"We hope this would be used in quality longitudinal studies and for early and accurate diagnosis of dementia. It includes a short 5 minutes cognitive screening instrument for the busy clinic, and a detailed version for more in-depth clinical testing for research," Dr Bhargav said, as quoted by IANS.

Prevalence of dementia in India

Dementia is a common neuropsychiatric condition in the Indian elderly population. A meta-analysis of 20 epidemiological studies by researchers at the Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, indicated that the prevalence of dementia in India is 20 per 1000 population.

Higher prevalence was found in older age groups (75 years and above) as compared to those below 75 years of age. But the prevalence rates were similar for males and females and rural and urban population. The article "Prevalence of dementia in India: A systematic review and meta-analysis" was published in the Indian Journal of Public Health in June 2021.

The Dementia India Report 2020 published by Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI) revealed that there are approximately 5.3 million people living with dementia in India and estimated that this number may increase to 7.6 million by 2030.

The report noted that despite the high prevalence of dementia in the country, 90% of people with dementia remain undiagnosed due to low awareness and the lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate tests.

The MUDRA Toolbox is a collective effort undertaken by ICMR Neuro Cognitive Tool Box (ICMR-NCTB) consortium consisting of seven leading centres in India -- NIMHANS (Bangalore), AIIMS (New-Delhi), SCTIMST (Trivandrum), NIMS (Hyderabad), Apollo Hospital (Kolkata), Manipal Hospital (Bangalore) and Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College.

Dementia is recognised as a public health priority by WHO . In July 2021, the organisation released "Towards a dementia-inclusive society: WHO toolkit for dementia-friendly initiatives", to support individuals, communities and countries in raising awareness of dementia, and empowering people living with the condition. The toolkit provides practical guidance and tools that can support efforts to create dementia-inclusive societies.