The 2012 Alzheimer's Report

The 2012 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures Report was released in February 2012 by the Alzheimer’s Association. It provides the latest statistical information regarding this disease including it’s effect upon those who have it, those who must care for them, and the economic cost of it all.

Out of this 71 page report emerge a few facts that remain scary and disturbing.

The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease still carries with it an eventual death sentence. 

There are still only 5  FDA approved medications that can be taken for AD. All of them merely act to slow the advance of the disease for a short while only. None of them stop it completely and none of them will cure it.

5.4 million Americans is the estimated number of people who have been diagnosed with AD.

Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s are women.

Every 68 seconds, someone in America develops AD. In 2009, this occurrence rate was one every 70 seconds. Over just the past 3 years, that’s an increase of thirty-seven more people each second developing the disease.

Between 2000 and 2008, deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease increased 66 percent, while those attributed to the number one cause of death, heart disease, decreased 13 percent.

Over 15 million Americans provide unpaid care for a person with AD or other dementia's.

Eighty percent of care that is provided at home is delivered by family caregivers.

In 2011, these folks provided an estimated 17.4 billion hours of unpaid care, a contribution to the nation valued at over $210 billion.

At least 800,000 people in the United States who have Alzheimer’s disease are living alone, and people who have other forms of dementia add substantially to that total.

All of these statistics are incredible and unacceptable. 

Over the past 30 years,  our citizenry, scientists, and government rallied and united to  wage war against heart disease and breast cancer. It paid off.  The odds of surviving these diseases has risen dramatically along with the opportunity to return to productive lives. Not so yet with AD.

It’s time for a change in our thinking and awareness about AD and cutting loose the purse strings of government research investment dollars. For 2012, government funding for AD research stands at $498 million. The Alzheimer’s Association scientists have called for spending to be increased to $2 billion.  It should be bumped up to $5 billion.  Let’s get busy.

Jeff Dodson

March 27th 2012