One in three British people born this year will suffer from dementia in their life. Dementia is when the brain no longer works properly due to illness, old age or injury. People have problems remembering things. Their personality changes and they forget how to do many everyday things. A mental illness charity said dementia would affect 27 per cent of boys and 37 per cent of girls born this year. This could cause a health crisis as everyone gets older. There is no effective treatment to slow down or stop dementia. The charity said governments do more research.

An expert on dementia spoke about how serious the problem is. Dr Matthew Norton said: "More and more people will develop dementia in the future if action is not taken now." He added: "Dementia is our greatest medical challenge and if we are to beat it, we must invest in research to find new treatments." Globally, around 36 million people have dementia. About 10 per cent of us get it at some point in our life. This percentage will increase as people live longer. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's. This causes the brain to lose cells so it cannot function properly.