Alzheimer’s Disease Prevalence Rates Rise to More than Five Million in the United States

March 20, 2007 — The Alzheimer’s Association today reports that in 2007 there are now more than 5 million people in the United States living with Alzheimer’s disease. This number includes 4.9 million people over the age of 65 and between 200,000 and 500,000 people under age 65 with early onset Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. This is a 10 percent increase from the previous prevalence nationwide estimate of 4.5 million.

The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s is increasing age, and with 78 million baby boomers beginning to turn 60 last year, it is estimated that someone in America develops Alzheimer’s every 72 seconds; by mid-century someone will develop Alzheimer’s every 33 seconds.

The report titled, 2007 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures, is being released at a hearing today chaired by Senator Barbara Mikulski. Senators Barbara Mikulski and Christopher Bond and Representatives Edward Markey and Christopher Smith have introduced bipartisan legislation to address problems identified in the Association’s report.

The Association’s report details the escalation of Alzheimer’s disease. For example:

• Without a cure or effective treatments to delay the onset or progression of the Alzheimer’s, the prevalence could soar to 7.7 million people with the disease by 2030, which is more than the population of 140 of the 236 United Nations countries.
• By mid-century, the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to grow to as many as 16 million, more than the current total population of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston combined.
• As the prevalence impact of Alzheimer’s grows, so does the cost to the nation. The direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias amount to more than $148 billion annually, which is more than the annual sales of any retailer in the world excluding Wal-Mart.

According to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2000-2004 death rates have declined for most major diseases—heart disease (-8 percent), breast cancer (-2.6 percent), prostate cancer (-6.3 percent) and stroke (-10.4 percent), while Alzheimer’s disease deaths continue to trend upward, increasing 33 percent during that period.

Medicare currently spends nearly three times as much for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias than for the average Medicare beneficiary. Medicare costs are projected to double from $91 billion in 2005 to more than $189 billion by 2015, more than the current gross national product of 86 percent of the world’s countries. In 2005, state and federal Medicaid spending for nursing home and home care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias was estimated at $21 billion; that number is projected to increase to $27 billion by 2015.

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Living With Alzheimer’s Before a Window Closes

By Jane Gross, New York Times

March 29, 2007 — Mary Blake Carver gazes from the cover of a neurology magazine this month, under the headline “I’m Still Here!” She often feels like shouting the message to her friends, her children, her husband.

Ms. Carver, 55, is among the growing ranks of people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, when short-term memory is patchy, organizational skills fail, attention wanders and initiative comes and goes. But there is still a window of opportunity—maybe one year, maybe five—to reason, communicate and go about her life with a bit of help from those around her.

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“Hey, I Got Dementia—and I’m Still Here!”:
Diagnosing and Treating Early Stage Alzheimer’s

January/February Neurology Now Edition
By Gina Shaw

George Rapoport didn’t think he had Alzheimer’s disease. In his mid-60s, recently retired from a lifetime in retail, he ran four miles every morning around the reservoir in Central Park near his Manhattan home, and then headed to his gym for another workout. I had two kids, two grandchildren, and a very nice life, he says, sitting in a discussion group at the offices of the Alzheimer’s Association of New York City. Then, whoosh, I was here.

It was a little more complicated than whoosh, of course. Diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease less than year ago, Rapoport becomes vague when asked what the first signs of his dementia had been. But his wife, Evelyn, had noticed his increasing memory lapses and occasional, uncharacteristic bursts of anger—so she brought him to a forum at the Alzheimer’s Association that included people with early-stage disease talking about their condition.

I was amazed that they were up there, actually talking about having dementia, he says. Initially when I started coming here, I was uncomfortable. But I’m mature enough to say, I’ve got a problem. And I’m not embarrassed that I have Alzheimer’s disease. I’m almost, like, proud. Hey, I got dementia—and I’m still here!

One of the more than 4.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease today—a number that’s expected to jump to 16 million by the year 2050. Many of these people, like Rapoport, are in the early stages of the disease.

Not long ago, early-stage Alzheimer’s disease support groups, like the one Rapoport attends at the Alzheimer’s Association’s New York office, were few and far between. That’s because, up until about 15 years ago, it was virtually impossible to reliably detect Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages. The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s could only be made when the disease was so advanced that the affected person had lost much of his cognitive abilities. Today, a battery of cognitive, neurological, and imaging tests makes it possible to detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier than ever, and more advanced diagnostic tools are on the horizon.

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