In 2004 there were about 46 million cases of neurological diseases such as epilepsy, migraines, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and stroke among the 466 million inhabitants of the EU (excluding the two new members Romania and Bulgaria, but including the non-members Iceland, Norway and Switzerland).
According to a study entitled “Costs of Disorders of the
Brain in Europe” (European Journal of Neurology, Volume 12, Supplement 1, June 2005), a further five million people suffered from
dementia, a disease classified both as a neurological and a mental disorder.
Costs of the Various Kinds of Neurological Disorders Neurological diseases incur costs of Euro84 billion a year. Migraines account for about Euro27 billion of the total, strokes for about Euro22 billion, epilepsy for about Euro15.5 billion, Parkinson’s for about Euro10.5 billion and multiple sclerosis for about Euro9 billion. According to the authors of the study, however, these figures are probably much higher, especially for strokes. There was too little precise data available on the frequency and costs of strokes. Dementia, for its part, is associated with financial outlays of Euro55 billion.
Data on neurological care can be found in the Neurology Atlas of the World Health Organization (WHO) for 2004. This survey reference work indicates that Europe has by far the best supply of neurological health care services of the six WHO regions. There are 4.84 neurologists per 100,000 inhabitants in the European countries compared with only 0.03 for Africa. The United States has more than five neurologists per 100,000 inhabitants. For North and South America as a whole, however, the average is only 0.89 neurologist per 100,000 inhabitants.