Blocking progression from intervenable mild cognitive impairment to irreversible dementia, what can we do?

With the rapid growth of the elderly population, dementia has become a global challenge that governments must address. Given the incurable nature of dementia, rehabilitation interventions starting in the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage may offer a solution. For a rehabilitation intervention to be implemented as early as possible, existing problems of identification of MCI and development of MCI-specific forms of rehabilitation must be addressed. Use of computer technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence might be helpful in overcoming these problems. Multi-disciplinary integrated approaches to rehabilitation should be the direction that dementia-related rehabilitation takes in the future. In addition to early rehabilitation, prevention of cognitive decline through the development of public community-based services for the elderly might be a more reasonable approach.