Over 12,000 Dementia Sufferers Go Missing in Japan in 2015

More than 12,000 dementia sufferers went missing temporarily in Japan last year, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The number of dementia sufferers who wandered off in 2015 due to the disease came to 12,208 on a police report basis, rewriting a record high for the third straight year since the national police started collecting the data in 2012. From 2014, the missing figure jumped by 1,425, or 13.2 pct. Of the total, men accounted for 7,012 and women 5,196. By prefecture, Osaka saw 1,791 sufferers disappeared, followed by Hyogo, with 1,309, Aichi, with 1,150, and Kanagawa, with 562. The agency also said that the whereabouts of 12,058, or 98.8 pct, of the disappeared sufferers had been confirmed as of Dec. 31, while the remaining 150 were still missing. According to a health ministry estimate, the number of people with dementia in the country will reach seven million in 2025,...