Alzheimer’s Disease Affects Everyone
- By age 85, 50% of us have Alzheimer’s disease
- By age 85, if we do not have Alzheimer’s disease, we are a caregiver for someone with Alzheimer’s disease
What Is Alzheimer’s disease?
- Alzheimer’s is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease
- Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia
- Approximately 5 million Americans affected
- Unknown etiology/cause but Tau accumulation & the Amyloid Cascade participate in this progressive disease.
- Impairment in activities of daily living, behavior, and cognition
- Average life span following diagnosis varies greatly but is often in the range of 7 to 10 years
Impact of Alzheimer’s disease on Caregivers
- More than 70% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease live at home, and almost 75% of home care is provided by family and friends
- 46% to 59% of caregivers are depressed, according to various studies
Alzheimer’s Grim Statistics
- Alzheimer’s Disease claimed over 500,000 American lives in 2017
- More than 5 million American victims are slowly dying
- 50 million people worldwide are suffering from progressive dementia
- US victims are cared for by 15 million caregivers
- Worldwide, there are 100 million caregivers
- Direct care costs of Alzheimer’s exceed those of cancer and heart disease
- Disease-modifying treatments and the cure are within reach through research
Economic Burden of Alzheimer’s disease
- Annual cost of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States »$800 billion
- Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (AD) affects over 50 million individuals around the world, which includes millions of Americans
- Third most expensive disease in the United States
- Average lifetime cost per patient = $287,000
- Cost to American businesses >$ $1.917 billion
Alzheimer’s Research Funding, Financial Burden, Human Toll
- Every year, United States government spends 10 times more on cancer research than on Alzheimer’s disease research
- Alzheimer’s disease costs society twice as much as cancer
- Alzheimer’s disease has about the same number of deaths per year as cancer
