Africa is seeing a surge of dementia cases. Families aren't sure what to do.

KITABURAZA, Uganda — In the night, when all that glows on this hilltop is the moonlight and all that moves are branches tickled by a soft breeze, the tumult returns. The old woman grows convinced her house is on fire and, panicked, drags the table, chairs and the rest of her few worldly possessions, outside. Unable to calm his mother, her son knows just one way to end it.

He locks her up.

“She yells,” the son, 62-year-old Herbert Rutabyama, says matter-of-factly. “She pounds on the door.”

Dementia’s prevalence has long been muted on this continent where lifespans have trailed the rest of the world for as long as anyone has kept track. But as the population of older people increases across Africa, experts are seeing a spike in new diagnoses, each of them bringing profound challenges to t