If better treatments are not found to prevent dementia the cost to Australia’s healthcare budget as well as the number of people with the disease will soar in the next few decades, according to Professor Craig Ritchie.

Ritchie, from the Psychiatry of Ageing at the University of Edinburgh, will be in Melbourne to deliver the Wicking Trust Public Lecture on October 14.

He says that scientists are closer to a dementia breakthrough than ever before.

But he warns that we need to make our brains healthier in mid-life to reduce the probability of getting dementia.

Read the full Media Release here.