The Growing Threat of Dementia and Its Impact on American Society and Families
April 23, 2010 - Reports & Studies
Alzheimer’s disease is a debilitating and ultimately fatal condition that is costly in financial, physical and emotional terms for families. This in turn requires large government expenditures as a result of high demands for long-term services and supports. A special Alzheimer’s disease study group reported to Congress at a March 25, 2009 hearing of the Senate Aging Committee. Witnesses included Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives and Bob Kerrey, former senator and president of The New School for Social Research. Both are co-chairs of the Alzheimer’s Study Group. Speakers advocated for increased funding of treatment and prevention for the disease. The National Institute on Aging further explains the scope of the disease in a 2007 report, “One in Seven Americans Age 71 and Older Has Some Type of Dementia, NIH-Funded Study Estimates."
The report offers an estimate of the number of older Americans who have Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, which has similar effects on the need for long-term services and supports. It was the first study to use a representative sample of older adults in the US and found that “about 3.4 million Americans age 71 and older—one in seven people in that age group—have dementia, and 2.4 million of them have Alzheimer’s disease (AD).”