The coming burden of Alzheimer's disease

In 2005, Medicare paid out $91 billion for costs related to Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. By 2015, those costs are expected to climb to $189 billion. Medicaid paid $21 billion in nursing home costs for Alzheimer's and dementia patients in 2005; by 2015, those costs will climb to $27 billion. It seems ironic that Alzheimer's-related costs are set to balloon as the billions of dollars pumped into treating and preventing other maladies are beginning to show results. In recent years, medical care has advanced to the point that deaths from cancers, heart disease and stroke, the leading causes of death in the U.S., have dropped dramatically. Very quietly though, deaths from Alzheimer's disease have climbed 44 percent, from 49,558 to 71,696. There is no cure for Alzheimer's. Its biggest risk factor is old age.

Double jeopardy in Alzheimer's families

One parent with Alzheimer's disease is tough enough, but imagine the memory-robbing illness striking both parents - and knowing chances are high you'll get it, too. A study of more than 100 families for the first time gauges the size of that risk. . . . The study, appearing in March's Archives of Neurology, found more than 22 percent of the adult children of 111 couples with Alzheimer's had the disease themselves. Risk grew with age. Among offspring older than 60, more than 30 percent were affected. In those older than 70, nearly 42 percent had the disease.
Prior studies have found a 6 to 13 percent prevalence of the disease in the U.S. population older than 65.