“Alzheimer’s Disease 2013 Update”
A frightening scenario is the loss of one’s memory. An estimated 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or some other form of dementia and those numbers will jump to 13.8 million by 2050. If 70-year-olds have dementia, 61 percent are expected to die before their eightieth birthday; whereas, deaths will occur in only 30 percent who don’t have Alzheimer’s. According to the CDC, nearly 85,000 people died from Alzheimer’s in 2011, which makes Alzheimer’s the sixth leading cause of death. That death rate rose 39 percent in the past decade. Experts calculated that health and long-term care services will total $203 billion this year. Shockingly, 1 in 3 seniors dies with (not necessarily from) Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia.
