This September marks the 15th World Alzheimer’s Month, an annual campaign led by Alzheimer’s Disease International to raise awareness of dementia and challenge the stigma that still surrounds it. This year’s theme, “The Earlier You Know, The More You Can Do,” is a reminder that awareness isn’t just symbolic. It changes real outcomes for real families, including the timing of a diagnosis, the quality of support that follows, and how much a family has to carry alone.

At Onyx Home Care, we spend our days with families navigating exactly this. So each year when this data comes out, we take it seriously, not as an abstract statistic, but as a picture of what our clients and their loved ones are actually living through.

The Scale of What We’re Talking About

More than 55 million people are living with dementia worldwide right now, and a new case emerges roughly every 3 seconds. That number isn’t holding steady. Alzheimer’s Disease International projects it will climb to 78 million by 2030 and 139 million by 2050, and dementia is expected to become the third leading cause of death globally by 2040.

Numbers at that scale can feel distant, until it’s your parent, your spouse, or your own diagnosis. Behind every one of those figures is a family figuring out, often for the first time, what comes next.

The Cost That Falls on Families, Not Systems

Here’s a fact that doesn’t get talked about enough: the global economic burden of dementia is estimated at $1.3 trillion a year, and that figure is expected to more than double by 2030. But the part that should really give families pause is this: roughly 50% of that entire cost comes from informal, unpaid care, meaning the labor of spouses, adult children, and other family caregivers, not paid professionals or institutions.

Globally, the unpaid care hours families provide to loved ones with dementia at home add up to the equivalent of 67 million full-time jobs every year. More than half of caregivers report that their own health has suffered as a direct result of their caregiving responsibilities. And caregiving isn’t distributed evenly: women make up roughly two-thirds of primary caregivers worldwide, just as they make up roughly two-thirds of people living with dementia.

This is the part of the dementia conversation that rarely makes headlines, but it’s the part that shapes daily life for millions of households. It’s also exactly where professional in-home support makes the most tangible difference, not by replacing family involvement, but by making it sustainable.

The Stigma That’s Still Costing People Time

Nearly 80% of the general public say they’re concerned about developing dementia themselves one day. And yet, fear of the diagnosis is part of what keeps people from acting on early symptoms. According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, 46% of people living with dementia and their carers identify fear of diagnosis and stigma as a real barrier to getting one, and 88% of people living with dementia report experiencing discrimination connected to it. More than a third of caregivers worldwide admit they’ve hidden a family member’s diagnosis from others entirely.

Even among professionals, misunderstanding persists. Alarmingly, 65% of health and care workers surveyed incorrectly believe dementia is simply a normal part of aging, and 1 in 4 people in the general public think there’s nothing that can be done to help prevent it. Both of those beliefs are outdated, and both of them delay families from getting support they’re entitled to.

What’s Actually Within a Family’s Control

This is where the story gets more hopeful than most people expect. Researchers now believe that addressing 14 modifiable risk factors, things like hearing loss, physical inactivity, social isolation, and untreated high blood pressure, could delay or even prevent up to 45% of dementia cases worldwide. That’s not a guarantee for any one individual, but it does mean prevention and early intervention matter far more than the “nothing can be done” mindset suggests.

It also reinforces why more than 90% of caregivers and members of the general public say they’d be encouraged to pursue a diagnosis if a disease-modifying treatment were available. People want to act. What often stands in the way is fear, misinformation, or simply not knowing where to start.

Awareness Is the First Step, Support Is What Comes Next

One of the more sobering numbers in this year’s report: 85% of people living with dementia currently receive no post-diagnostic support at all. A diagnosis, on its own, isn’t the finish line. It’s the starting point for a much longer road, one that includes daily care, safety planning, routine, and someone who understands what a family is going through.

This is exactly the gap Onyx Home Care exists to close. Whether a family is in the earliest, uncertain stage after a diagnosis or further down the road with more advanced care needs, our caregivers are trained to provide the kind of steady, informed support that keeps both the person living with dementia and the people who love them from having to navigate it alone.

If World Alzheimer’s Month means anything beyond raising awareness for one month a year, it’s this: the earlier a family reaches out for support, the more options, time, and peace of mind they have. We’d be glad to talk through what that support could look like for your family, whenever you’re ready.

Statistics in this article are sourced from Alzheimer’s Disease International’s 2026 World Alzheimer’s Month Campaign Toolkit.