Alzheimers: Dread Disease of Baby Boomers

This year, the first wave of baby boomers are turning 65 – and with increased age comes increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Our new report, "Generation Alzheimer's: The Defining Disease of the Baby Boomers," sheds light on a crisis that is no longer emerging – but here.

Many baby boomers will spend their retirement years either with Alzheimer's or caring for someone who has it.

An estimated 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's.

Starting this year, more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65. As these baby boomers age, one of out of eight of them will develop Alzheimer’s – a devastating, costly, heartbreaking disease. Increasingly for these baby boomers, it will no longer be their grandparents and parents who have Alzheimer’s – it will be them.
 
"Alzheimer’s is a tragic epidemic that has no survivors. Not a single one," said Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association. "It is as much a thief as a killer. Alzheimer’s will darken the long-awaited retirement years of the one out of eight baby boomers who will develop it. Those who will care for these loved ones will witness, day by day, the progressive and relentless realities of this fatal disease. But we can still change that if we act now."

According to the new Alzheimer’s Association report, "Generation Alzheimer’s," it is expected that 10 million baby boomers will either die with or from Alzheimer’s, the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent, cure or even slow its progression. But, while Alzheimer’s kills, it does so only after taking everything away, slowly stripping an individual’s autonomy and independence. Even beyond the cruel impact Alzheimer’s has on the individuals with the disease, Generation Alzheimer’s also details the negative cascading effects the disease places on millions of caregivers. Caregivers and families go through the agony of losing a loved one twice: first to the ravaging effects of the disease and then, ultimately, to actual death.

"Most people survive an average of four to six years after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, but many can live as long as 20 years with the disease. As the disease progresses, the person with dementia requires more and more assistance with everyday tasks like bathing, dressing, eating and household activities," said Beth Kallmyer, senior director of Constituent Relations for the Alzheimer’s Association. "This long duration often places increasingly intensive care demands on the nearly 15 million family members and friends who provide unpaid care, and it negatively affects their health, employment, income and financial security."

In addition to the human toll, over the next 40 years Alzheimer’s will cost the nation $20 trillion, enough to pay off the national debt and still send a $20,000 check to every man, woman and child in America. And while every 69 seconds someone in America develops Alzheimer’s disease today, by 2050 someone will develop the disease every 33 seconds - unless the federal government commits to changing the Alzheimer’s trajectory.
 
Read the full report here.


Related reading: New Treatments for Alzheimers Coming?; Resources For Families With Alzheimers

New Treatments for Alzheimers Coming?

From BioEdge, this encouraging report:

A spinal fluid tap may be 100% accurate in predicting whether a patient will develop Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published in Archives of Neurology.

According to the New York Times, until now the presence of the disease could only be confirmed after an autopsy, although it begins ten or more years before symptoms appear. But a simple spinal tap could predict whether someone has the progressive and incurable brain disease and identify them as potential subjects for research into cures. "This is what everyone is looking for, the bull's-eye of perfect predictive accuracy," said Dr Steven DeKosky, dean of the University of Virginia medical school.

The news was widely reported in the media and shot to the top of the most-read articles in the Times. The conumdrums of a screening test for Alzheimer's were clear to everyone. Would healthy people want to know that they have a disease for which there is no cure? How would they react?

For researchers, the benefits are obvious. It would be far more efficient to test potential treatments on people in the initial stage of the disease. In an accompanying editorial, two experts declared that spinal taps may become a routine "screening test to identify clinically healthy individuals at risk". This would be helpful in developing "early application of treatments to delay onset of symptoms or slow progression of cognitive impairments".

Bioethicist Jonathan Moreno, of the University of Pennsylvania, pointed out in The New Republic that the existence of an accurate and relatively simple test creates many policy problems. As many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer's. How will that affect their health insurance? How will it affect families? Will it lead to suicide or will it encourage people to put their affairs in order? ~New York Times, Aug 9

Related reading:  Alzheimers: Dread Disease of Baby Boomers; Resources For Families With Alzheimers