A new study in the journal Neurology, released by the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute on Aging, predicts that as baby boomers continue to age, the number of Alzheimer's cases will increase to 13.8 million by the year 2050. Today, the degenerative brain condition affects approximately 5 million Americans and 38 million people worldwide, and costs $200 billion a year to treat in the United States, $140 million of that covered by Medicare. The costs could exceed $1 trillion by 2050.
The Alzheimer's Association created the model based on a study of 1,913 senior citizens from Chicago who were evaluated for the condition from 1997 to 2011, the LA Times reports. All aprticipants were at least 65 years old. It projected that by 2050, 3.3 percent of 65- to 74-year-olds, 18.5 percent of 74- to 84-year-olds and 36.6 percent of those 85 and older would have Alzheimer's, which would put immense of pressure on later generations to provide adequate care.
In 2011, the federal government started the National Alzheimer's Project, bringing together public, private and nonprofit organizations to develop a treatment plan for patients in the years to come. It plans to have a drug for treating Alzheimer's ready by 2025. The focus now is figuring out how to identify the symptoms in its early stages so patients can begin therapies to slow its progression.
Scientists still do not know how Alzheimer's starts, but they believe it creates tangles and plaques in the brain, slowly killing neurons and causing the entire structure to shrink. It affects memory, reasoning, cognitive and motor abilities, and patients eventually lose the ability to care for themselves.
"Our study draws attention to an urgent need for more research, treatments and preventive strategies to reduce this epidemic," study co-author Jennifer Weuve, an assistant professor of medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told Reuters.
The Alzheimer's Association says that between 60 and 80 percent of dementia cases are caused by this disease. Although deaths from HIV, heart disease, cancer and stroke have all fallen between 2000 and 2008, says the LA Times, the number of Alzheimer's death increased by two-thirds, the result of people's average lifespans extending far longer than they used to.
