By HIDEMASA YOSHIZAWA/ Staff Writer
June 23, 2023 at 18:41 JST
The National Police Agency in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
A record 18,709 people with dementia became lost in Japan in 2022, up 1,073 from the previous year, but most of them were soon found, according to the National Police Agency.
The latest figure was the 10th consecutive year of increase since 2012, when the agency started counting the cases.
Over that decade, the number of such cases has jumped by 95 percent due mainly to the rapidly aging population, according to the NPA.
By the end of 2022, 17,923 missing people were found alive.
In fact, 77.5 percent were discovered on the same day police received the missing-persons reports, and 99.6 percent turned up within a week.
The discovered people included those who went missing in or before 2021.
However, 491 people were found dead in 2022, including those reported missing in or before 2021.
Of the people reported missing in 2022, 57.0 percent were 80 or older while 37.2 percent were in their 70s.
By prefecture, Hyogo topped the list with 2,115 missing people, followed by Osaka with 1,996, Saitama with 1,902, Kanagawa with 1,780 and Aichi with 1,549.
Of the total, 284 remained missing as of the end of 2022.
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